Riding wave of wins, MHS choir hits road for Florida

The Mitchell High School show choir has reached the culmination of its 2010 season.

The group, known as Friend de Coup, left early today to compete in the FAME National Show Choir Competition in Orlando, Fla. The 70-member group will perform Saturday at an all-day contest at Hard Rock Live.

“We’ve been working hard,” Friend de Coup director Chris Miller said. “We’ve come out pretty darn good so far this season, so we’ll just try to ride that momentum into having a great performance in Orlando and hope to make it into finals.”

Friend de Coup nabbed the Grand Champion title at three of its four regular season contests, along with a multitude of other honors so far this year. The group performs a blend of songs from the 1950s rock ’n’ roll era to today.

This is the first national trip for Friend de Coup in 10 years. The last national contest MHS attended was in 2000 in Branson, Mo. That year, Friend de Coup, under the direction of Jeff Gemar, received the Grand Champion title in their division.

Miller and the rest of Friend de Coup hope to repeat that success.

MHS will compete against six other show choirs in their division. The top four teams will advance to the finals, which take place in the afternoon and evening.

“We need to put our best foot forward vocally,” Miller said. “These competitions score you very heavily on vocals — tone pronunciation, blending and balancing.”

Miller said Friend de Coup has always had solid choreography, but this year, the vocals have really improved.

“(The vocals) is what’s really launched us into this level of success that we’re achieving lately. They’ve just become a higher priority,” Miller said.

Friend de Coup began its competitive season Jan. 16 at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The group claimed the Grand Champion title and won best vocal and best choreography honors.

The choir claimed third place in Hastings, Minn., at the “Swinging on the River” contest. The Hastings show also honored Friend de Coup with the “People’s Choice Award.”

“That was a very tough competi- tion,” Miller said. “There was some amazing show choir watched that day. It was pretty intense.”

Friend de Coup won Grand Champion at the Quad State Showcase in Sioux City, Iowa, and at the “Clash of the Titans” contest in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Awards this season also included multiple best band, choreography and vocal awards, as well as stage crew and tech crew honors at the Sioux City and Council Bluff shows.

The success of this season has boosted the group’s confidence heading into the national contest, Miller said.

Senior singer/dancer Jacob Pecenka said he’s not nervous — yet.

“Nerves don’t really affect me much at this point. We knew that if this was going to be the year we were going to do this, we needed to work hard,” Pecenka said. “And the hard work has paid off. Just the way we’ve rehearsed and the way we’ve competed and the way we’ve placed, it’s really shown that we set out to accomplish this year.”

“The adrenaline rush is already coming,” said Amber White, senior pianist for the band, which calls itself “Severe Tire Damage.”

White, a four-year Friend de Coup member, said she feels the group has a good shot at the National Grand Champion award.

The students began raising funds for the trip in November 2009. They sold frozen foods, raffle tickets and sang at Christmas parties for donations, in the hopes to meet their $70,000 goal by the beginning of 2010.

“It was amazing to see people’s generosity,” Miller said. “I just can’t say enough how thankful I am for that.”

While in Orlando, the students will visit the Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure theme parks.

“Hopefully, they won’t scream too much so they can save their voices,” Miller said.

After returning from Orlando, Friend de Coup will perform at the Mitchell Show Choir Classic March 20 at the Corn Palace. The show choir will also perform a dinner theater March 23 and 25-27.

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