Indiana choir to join Foreigner onstage at Ruoff for a performance they'll 'never, ever forget'

A group of high schoolers from Brazil, Indiana, are about to perform alongside rock n' roll legends.

Members of the Northview High School choir program will join '70s and '80s icons Foreigner onstage at Ruoff Music Center Friday night to perform their hit, "I Want to Know What Love Is."

"This'll be something that they will never, ever forget," Brenda Buchanan, the school's choir director, told IndyStar.

Indy entertainment news: Before Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction this fall, Foreigner brings farewell tour to Ruoff

It's not the first time the 2024 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees have brought a local choir with them onstage. For their 2017 performance at the Noblesville amphitheater, they were joined by the Greenwood High School choir .

How Northview's choir got a spot on stage with Foreigner

Buchanan said she heard of the opportunity to compete for the chance to perform from a student's family member. In March, she submitted a video of the jazz choir performing Jamiroquai's "Virtual Insanity" at this year's Indiana State School Music Association competition. They got the good news in May — just as the school year was ending.

But the students immediately took the music, even if they didn't recognize the artist at first.

"I played the music for them a couple times in class," she said. "They didn't realize that they knew it, but they knew it."

The jazz choir includes some of the program's most advanced performers, she said, so they began harmonizing right away, learned all the words quickly and are prepared to take the stage in front of tens of thousands of Foreigner fans Friday night.

The band's keyboardist, Michael Bluestein, told IndyStar that, because of the way the stage is arranged, he gets a front-row seat to the choir's performance. Bluestein began playing piano when he was 9 years old, and he said music gave him another lens to see the world through as he was growing up.

"I can't imagine what life would've been without it," he said. "So it's just really kind of giving back in a way and just seeing them get to explore that — explore performance, explore singing, singing with a band — the energy of that and being on stage with it is just kind of a full-circle moment for me."

Foreigner helps cover choir's costs

Not only will the students get to perform, Foreigner will also donate $500 to the choir program, which Buchanan said will help cover the costs of transportation and contest fees for students.

Arts education and extracurriculars are often cut significantly or entirely from district budgets, but Buchanan said it's a place where students develop important life skills.

"I think a lot of people outside of the arts think that we're just singing and have a concert every once in a while, but it's so much more than that," she said.

She continued: "I think that a lot of the kids grow in their humanity so much from being in a music group. ... Everybody has to participate — nobody is sitting on a bench anywhere waiting to go into the game. They're, at all times, putting forth massive amounts of effort. It's an all-in kind of thing for everybody."

Styx & Foreigner with John Waite at Ruoff Music Center: If you go

When: 6:45 p.m. July 26

Where: Ruoff Music Center, 12880 E. 146th St. in Noblesville

Tickets: livemu.sc/4cKl6f9

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Contact IndyStar pop culture reporter Holly Hays at holly.hays@indystar.com. Follow her on X/Twitter: @hollyvhays.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana choir to join Foreigner onstage at Ruoff for a performance they'll 'never, ever forget'