Mount View singers serenade White House

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WASHINGTON – “Joyful all ye nations rise, join the triumph of the skies” echoed through the East Room as White House visitors passed through after catching a quick glimpse of the Mount View High School Chamber Singers.

Unfortunately, performing in front of a constant stream of passers-by, group members said they had to fight to not be drowned out.

“It takes some of the heart out of it when people are walking past you,” Emily Cochrane, a senior from Waldo, said.

“But it was definitely worth it – the White House is beautiful.”

Mount View High School in Thorndike was one of about 30 schools in the nation with singers chosen to perform at the White House as part of annual Christmas entertainment for the public.

The group, performing for the first time at the White House, was accompanied by parent chaperone Kelli Couturier and Mount View music teacher David Stevenson.

The group was situated on one side of the East Room, which was lavishly decorated with three Christmas trees. The room is used for everything from dinners and weddings, to press conferences.

Couturier’s daughter Bethany is a member of the group and son Robert, now a freshman at the University of Maine, sang in the group for the last four years.

“Unfortunately, he graduated too soon to come,” Couturier said.

But travel is nothing new to this group. Last year, the young singers traveled to England for performances at Oxford and Winchester Cathedral, and they have performed at churches in Southern California.

Stevenson, who is a teacher and also the composer, said the singing group drove 12 hours – overnight – to get to Washington, and that this is just one of at least 15 performances this month.

“We’re tired from this month, but the kids just love it, Stevenson said. “If I asked them in May if they were tired, they would not remember.”

Apparently the group has at least one huge fan back home. Over the last 10 years they have been performing in local churches during the holiday season, according to Stevenson. But last season, 92-year-old Rev. M. de Forest Lowen of Belfast noticed the group. After watching the singers last year, he took it upon himself to get them to the White House.

Lowen said from his home in Belfast that when he watched the chamber singers perform, he was transfixed.

“My wife and I looked at each other after we heard them and said, they’ve got to go to the White House,” Lowen said.

“They’ve got a spirit that is so uplifting that we just felt that the White House needed them.”

Lowen said that he wrote to Rep. John Baldacci, who in turn, put a word in to President Clinton. And less than a year later, the group was in Washington.

But Lowen said that the work was worth it.

“It never seemed like a great effort because we believe so strongly in this group,” Lowen said.

AJ Ludden of Jackson, and a sophomore at Mount View High School, said he was not nervous to sing at the White House.

“I think we’re too tired to be nervous – we play all the time so we get used to it,” Ludden said.

“We couldn’t think about how exciting it was [to be at the White House] because we had a job to do,” Stevenson said.

During a short break, group members asked Heather Beaton, of the First Lady’s Office, if they would get to sing for the President or the First Lady. Beaton told them no.

So, to try to impress Beaton into letting them meet the Clintons, group members decided to perform an extra number for her.

Calvin Goodale asked Stevenson if he could borrow the pitch pipe to lead his peers.

“Just don’t embarrass me,” their composer joked.

Little did they know that Beaton is just an intern in the First Lady’s Office. She’s a college student from Michigan and during her stint in the White House has met the First Lady just once “very briefly.”

“It would just be funny, if they really knew who I was,” Beaton said.Upon their return, the Mount View Chamber Singers have one more scheduled performance – at the Essex Street Methodist Church in Bangor at 7 p.m. Dec. 21.