One down, one to go: select AJSHS music students went on one trip this year – and have one coming up

It’s a music trip year for Anaconda School District, with students from Anaconda Junior/Senior High School attending the Northwest ACDA Honor Choir in Tacoma in March and a dozen students set to go on a trip to Europe this summer.

Choir and orchestra teacher Kim Lorengo said that both trips happen every two years.

Five students from AJSHS traveled to Tacoma to participate in the Northwest American Choral Director Association (ACDA) Honor Choir in March.

The students who participate in the Honor Choir are from Alaska, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Wyoming.

Lorengo said the selection process for this choir starts with a video audition, recorded by Lorengo, and is then submitted to the ACDA. If accepted, the students rehearse music for three days and perform a concert at the end of the third day.

“They get to work with guest directors from all over the country,” Lorengo said. “[There were] some pretty big names. One of them’s a big composer, one of them’s a Grammy winner.”

Two of Lorengo’s students, Averie Nielsen and Brenna Carney, were in the 11-12th grade Soprano and Alto Choir, one, Tydan Jovanovich, was in the 9-10th grade Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass Choir, and two, Dana Murray and Hayes Fehrer, were in the middle school choir.

And now Lorengo is gearing up for her second trip this year, but this will be a much longer trip, the Stars of Montana Trip to Europe.

Lorengo said students get nominated for the tour by their music teachers, and then the students can decide if they want to go or not. From Anaconda, 12 students will go.

Lorengo said that statewide, 1,100 students were nominated, and about 105 are going. She said the 10% turnout has been a typical trend over the years.

The upcoming trip will be from June 18 to July 6, Lorengo said, and will start with a three-day camp in Bozeman before the students fly to Europe. There, the students will travel from London to Paris to Switzerland to Austria and finally Germany.

Lorengo said the students also get to visit Lichtenstein, although they won’t perform there, so they get to visit six countries and perform in five.

In addition to performing in these Europe, the students get to be tourists and visit different attractions in each country.

The price tag for the trip is a little less than $8,000 per kid, Lorengo said, which covers the majority of the trip aside from incidentals the students will pay for themselves and one meal per day the students are expected to pay for themselves.

“We cover all the rest of the meals, but they have one meal a day,” Lorengo said. “Most of that is because we want them to experience what it’s like to eat over there and have a crepe and have, you know, a baguette sandwich.”

The trip had to be paid in February, though, according to Lorengo, so everyone is set and ready to go.

Although Lorengo has been a staff member on the trips since 2013, this will be her first year being the Stars of Montana Tour Director.

In year past, Lorengo said, Montana and South Dakota have gone together, but last year with almost 400 kids (eight tour buses worth) attending, they decided that this year it would be best if they went separately, and Lorengo was asked to lead the charge for Montana.

“The way that these tours are set up is that we start with one tour and then following that tour, three days later comes in another tour, three days later comes in another tour, so it’s all these different tour groups that come through,” Lorengo said. 

“So then they all put on concerts in the same venues and stuff, so it’s a lot of locals that comes through, which is so wild to think about,” Lorengo said. “And especially in this day and age with the reputation that we think is out there…they still love coming to watch us. Like there’s always, in London, there’s always this group of ladies that come holding American flags…and come waving the American flags at our concerts.”