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Arts and Entertainment: CS Porter Portamentos

Posted at 10:37 AM, Nov 08, 2018
and last updated 2018-11-08 12:37:31-05

MISSOULA – We headed over to CS Porter Middle School for this week’s Arts and Education report where kids are gearing up for one special performance.

The fantastic sounds come courtesy of the CS Porter Portamentos an all-boys choir made up with some of the best singers at the school.

“It’s a try out choir, audition only. We had about 90 kids audition between our two advanced choirs and we took the top 12 from the men’s choir and 28 in the other advanced choir,” MCPS Director of Choirs Chris Whiteman. “So it’s pretty slim pickings as far as who we choose, but we have two great ensembles for men. ”

Singing in the Portamentos is a big commitment for the kids and one of the commitments is early morning practices before school evens starts.  However, they wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Once I started choir I never thought it would be so fun, and to get the chance to be taught by Mr. Whiteman is really really fun,” seventh-grade student Jorrin Grensten said.

“I enjoy singing a lot because you can express all of your emotions without talking about it, I don’t know how to really put it. It’s just being able to express yourself without anyone judging you,”eighth-grade student Tearin Rath added.

There are two big events that the choirs at CS Porter will participate in this year.

One of them is when they will travel to Seattle to play in the Heritage Festival.  The second one is set for November 26 when they will sing the National Anthem for the Harlem Globetrotters Missoula visit.

“So the Globetrotters, when they go to a city they start looking for choirs around town.  They saw us on YouTube and were pretty impressed with our YouTube channel,” Whiteman said.

“They then contacted me and said we would love to see you sing the national anthem, would this be something you are interested in, obviously we said yes,” he added.

“And so we have had great conversations with the folks in charge there, and just getting geared up for it and really excited about it,” Whiteman concluded.