Valley Voices Choir to sing at Carnegie Hall

Ask the members of the Valley Voices choir which performance venue is their favorite and it’s hard to find a consensus.

“Flathead High School,” the first voices offer.

“Or Glacier High School,” chime in a few others.

“Flathead High School or Glacier High School,” they settle on.

It’s definitely one of those two spots.

The community choir, currently made up of 82 women and men age 10 through 85 from around the Flathead Valley, has been around for 16 years, typically putting on two free concerts a year and performing other, smaller shows as requested. It’s a passion project for the director, Allyson Kuechmann, a trained director and musician who has spent most of her career working with young vocalists.

The choir has enjoyed a humble yet satisfactory existence. Choir members are not required to audition and many have little to no formal musical training. They get to sing with joy, meet up with new and old friends, perform in front of gradually increasing audiences at Kalispell’s two high schools, soak up a round of applause afterward and settle back into their routine.

Then last July, while working her day job at a local bank, Kuechmann checked her email.

“One of their talent scouts contacted me,” she said of a new message in her inbox.

“(He) said that ‘we need one more choir and I was going through YouTube and I saw your choir performing and I want you on our stage.’”

Kuechmann’s response was as enthusiastic as it was succinct.

“I’m like, ‘what?’ I couldn’t believe it.”

That favorite venue? It’s about to change.

The next stage for the Valley Voices will be the one at Carnegie Hall.

NEW YORK City has no shortage of iconic cultural locales, but perhaps none are as synonymous with prestige and achievement as Carnegie Hall.

After all, it’s the only one that’s the setup to a well-worn joke.

You know, the one where you ask a New Yorker how to get to Carnegie Hall and he quips “practice.”

The venerated venue was built in Midtown Manhattan at the behest of industrialist Andrew Carnegie and is musically just about a perfect space. The 2,804 seats are said to be acoustically exactly the same — a marvel of architecture and engineering — and the main performance arena, the Isaac Stern Auditorium, opened its doors in 1891, two years after Montana was granted statehood.

Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky was the conductor on opening night.

“It’s just on people’s bucket list,” Valley Voices singer and trip director Noreen Wood said. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. None of us are going to do this again, I very much doubt it.”

“It’s the pinnacle of the musical experience,” singer Wilene Bridger added.

THIRTY-SEVEN members of the choir are making the trip and many left earlier this week to make the most of their New York experience. Some have family joining them from Montana, others have more distant friends and relatives trekking in from across the Eastern seaboard.

The choir members have plans to hit as many of the sights as they can, with plans to do everything from visiting the Statue of Liberty and the National September 11 Memorial and Museum to taking in Broadway shows and operas. A few, if they can wake up early enough and fight through the crowds, plan to be at Rockefeller Center for the Today Show’s live broadcast Friday morning.

Then the work begins.

The Valley Voices will step into Carnegie Hall Friday for the first of two rehearsals with Distinguished Concerts International New York (DCINY) principal conductor Jonathan Griffith before taking the stage in front of the largest crowd its ever seen Sunday afternoon.

“When we filled Glacier (High School) a few years ago, standing room only, you’re talking about 700 people and they don’t pay,” Wood said. “Now you’re dealing with a completely different thing. This is New York City. This is Carnegie Hall.

“You’ve got to be good to get there.”

“My biggest fear is that I will not count right and I’ll have a solo,” singer Lori Hanzelka said with a laugh.

The performance, “Messiah … Refreshed” will begin Sunday at noon Mountain Standard Time. It will be broadcast live at www.dciny.org.

“MESSIAH” IS a fitting musical choice for the group which, unlike most of the 18 other community choirs that will perform Sunday, did not have to audition. The YouTube video that DCINY scout Neil McDonald saw and emailed about was a performance of the “Hallelujah Chorus,” the most well known part of George Frideric Handel’s iconic composition.

The “Hallelujah Chorus” has been a staple of Valley Voices performances for years, serving as the grand finale of the choir’s annual Christmas concert. It’s music that has deeply personal and spiritual meaning to many of the singers.

“It’s emotional,” singer Jonah Libsack-Maynard said. “For me it’s very emotional because I’m singing for Jesus.”

“I know I’m going to choke up,” Wood said. “At our concerts I can hardly get the last ‘hallelujah’ out … (it) just has a special place in all of our hearts.”

Sunday, the 19 choirs will be split into two groups, with the Valley Voices singing the first half of the two-plus hour composition on the main stage before moving to the mezzanine to watch most of the second half. Then, beginning with the “Hallelujah Chorus,” all 19 choirs — more than 450 total singers — will sing the final three songs together. Half, including the Valley Voices, will be singing from the mezzanine.

“I’ll get to take a bow with all the other directors of the different choirs,” Kuechmann said. “I told my mom, who’s in Seattle, I said ‘you have to watch it mom, I’m going to take a final bow!’ and she goes ‘oh my gosh.’”

THE TRIP to New York did not come cheaply for the Valley Voices, who initially were asked to perform in 2015 but requested more time to raise enough money. Each member paid their own way but costs were defrayed by nearly $30,000 the singers raised in a variety of ways over the past year.

“The whole group just got involved with knocking on doors, sending letters, sending emails, just asking people ‘please help us’ with whatever you can,” Wood said.

The group has received donations from hundreds of individuals and businesses, including choir members who are not able to go to New York.

With their fundraising efforts complete, the group was a little nervous, a little excited and a little giddy just last week.

“Three o’clock in the morning you wake up,” Bridger said. “It’s not just a thrill, it’s scary. That’s why I wake up at three o’clock in the morning.”

“My prayers turn into music,” singer Anne Mahoney added. “They turn into songs instead of prayers.”

THE VALLEY Voices choir will get right back to work in Kalispell when its singers get home.

The group’s next performance, a free concert titled “We Need a Little Christmas,” will be held at Flathead High School on Dec. 10 at 7 p.m. The show will include two songs from “Messiah.”

More information on the choir is available at www.valleyvoiceschoir.com.