This February, the Hellgate Chevaliers (Chevies), Hellgate High School’s extracurricular honor choir, traveled to Bellevueve, Washington, to perform for the All NorthWest Conference. “It’s a conference for music teachers from the six northwest states (Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and Alaska),” said Choral Director Ellen McKenzie.
Marking the first choir trip “post” Covid, it sparked much excitement among the students. “My favorite part was probably the jazz concert that we went to. It was fantastic,” said senior Elan Fleck.
The process to be selected for this honor was long and thorough. “Last Spring I submitted the Audition, which is about 3 years worth of recordings, to the National Association For Music Education (NAFME) and we were accepted by the beginning of summer,” said McKenzie.
Performing twice throughout the four days, the students also visited places around Seattle, including the Space Needle and Museum of Pop Culture. “I had never been to a play before, so going to see Into The Woods was really cool,” said junior Michael Schermerhorn.
Overall the trip was very successful. “Honestly, it’s been the best trip I can remember taking. The performance was outstanding, and it was just a great time all around,” said McKenzie. “I feel like it was the best we’ve ever performed it,” agreed sophomore Evie Wright.
“It was really fun to perform in front of a group of people that you’ve never performed for before,” said Schermerhorn.
Funding the trip was naturally quite expensive. “Since the last time we traveled, which was 2018, everything’s gotten a lot more expensive, particularly housing and bus costs,” said McKenzie, “It was really stressful to have to ask that much from families but we did get some big donations that really helped.”
“Fundraising for the trip was difficult. There were plenty of opportunities but some of us also had to fundraise on our own,” said Fleck
With the success of this trip and barring any pandemic detours, McKenzie hopes to take choir students on a trip again. “I think we’ll take another trip in two years. Depends on events but we’ve usually gone to Portland or Seattle so far.”