It’s 7:05 a.m. on a Friday morning, but the students getting ready for choir practice inside the Camas High School theater building are wide awake.

Maybe it’s because instead of practicing the same old choir tunes by long dead composers, they’re rehearsing a series of new compositions written for the choir by four composers from around the globe, including local indie rockers Sama Dams and Alan Singley. The 150-student strong choir will join with the two bands on April 18 for a concert called “Joined Voices” at the First Congregation Church in downtown Portland

“The rationale,” says choir director Ethan Chessin, “was in English class you study Hamlet, but you also learn to write essays. Why is it that in music class we just perform works that have already been composed – we just study the master works? Why don’t we give the students the tools to write their own music?”

Read our full story at: opb.org/radio/article/joined-voices