It’s not everyday that someone gets to sing on stage alongside a classic rock ’n roll band, but the Drummond Area School District choir will get that opportunity in September when they perform with Foreigner in Duluth.
The performance was made possible through a contest organized by Duluth-based radio station 95KQDS. To win, schools had to submit a video of its choir preforming Foreigner’s classic song “I want to Know What Love Is.” KQ listeners then voted online for their favorite.
The school has an auditorium and rehearsal room, but the choir decided to record their performance in the school stairwell.
“It has good acoustics. We tried it a couple times, mostly because I kept making mistakes on the piano,” Choir Director Nick Kuka said with a chuckle.
The students and Kuka knew there were bigger schools in the competition, and were worried about their chances of winning. Waiting to hear the results was difficult.
“It was killing me,” Kuka recalled. “We were going against Proctor, Hayward and Cloquet high schools. I didn’t know what the voting would look like.”
The school community got online and voted as often as they could. It worked. The DASD choir beat the competition by more than 1,000 votes, Kuka said.
“I thought the kids put together an amazing performance,” he said.
When Kuka found out the choir was the top vote getter, he got overwhelmed and went for a victory lap.
“I was crazy overjoyed — top of the world for me. I ran up and down the hallways to tell as many people as I could,” he said.
Choir member Sara Fibert, who’s going to be a senior in the upcoming school year, was not at school at the time. But she found out online. At first she and her friend didn’t believe it, but the news slowly sank in.
“We started jumping up and down. I was so excited,” she recalled.
Given the fact that Drummond is a small school district with roughly 330 students, Fibert and fellow choir member sophomore Nathaniel Renz didn’t expect to get this break.
“It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity,” Fibert said. “Nothing crazy really happens here.”
Now Renz can’t wait to sing alongside his classmates with what he considers “one of the best bands ever.”
Not only that, he is also excited to see Foreigner perform live and listen to some of his personal favorites by them, like “That was Yesterday” and “Cold As Ice.”
He has been in the school choir for several years now and appreciates being a part of what he calls a great community led by an instructor who “pushes us to be the best we can be,” he said.
Wanting to do their best lead the choir to work on the their submission video for several days straight in order to get it just right.
Fibert said she isn’t too nervous about the upcoming performance on stage in front of a large crowd. Having been in the choir and the school’s theater program helps, too, she said.
As the choir gets ready, Kuka will do his best to contain his excitement.
“This is a giant moment for me as a director and kid at heart with one of the most popular rock bands of all time. I’m still kind of in that phase where it doesn’t feel real. It won’t feel real until we get to the arena in September,” he said.
Renz’s mom, Maria Renz, grew up listening to Foreigner with her mom. She is grateful the band gave the students an opportunity to play with them and hopes to be able to get tickets to see her son and the rest of the choir perform.
“It shows how much of an amazing band they are,” she said.
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