Manchester Chorus Set To Sing With Foreigner At PNC Arts Center

MANCHESTER, NJ — The kids are so young that it's likely their parents were toddlers at best when the band Foreigner's hit songs had middle and high school students crooning in the 1980s.

On July 26, however, the Manchester Township Middle School Chorus is going to get a chance of a lifetime, as they are set to perform with the rock band at PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel.

Foreigner, which is appearing with Lynyrd Skynyrd as part of the Double Vision, Double Trouble tour, offered the opportunity for one middle or high school chorus in New Jersey to sing with them during the concert.

In late May, the middle schoolers from Manchester learned they had won.

"A friend said, I heard about this contest, you should try it," Katie Sherman, the choir director and a music teacher at Manchester Township Middle School, told Patch on Monday afternoon. The contest, sponsored by the radio station 105.7 The Hawk, invited choirs to submit a 1-minute video of them performing the hit "I Want To Know What Love Is."

Sherman played several Foreigner songs for her students as she told them about the contest.

"They knew quite a few of their songs, which was cool," she said. She looked at Foreigner's original video from when the song was released in 1984 for ideas on how to make Manchester's video stand out.

With the help of Greg Lassik, a Manchester resident who's a videographer, the chorus put together their entry on April 1 and submitted it April 7. (You can watch it at the bottom of the article.)

Then the students rehearsed and rehearsed before filming the video at Manchester Township High School.

"He was super creative," Sherman said. "We sang that song for two hours straight to get the sound right and the visuals right."

Some of the visuals from the original music video weren't middle school-appropriate, Sherman said, but enough of them were that they were able to do justice to one of the all-time hits of the rock-and-roll Hall of Famers.

Sherman said she missed the initial call when 105.7 The Hawk personality Bueller reached out to notify her on May 21 that Manchester's chorus had won.

"I was picking up my son from school," she said. But Bueller called back a few minutes later with the news.

"I said, I can't wait to tell my students," she said.

She announced it to the chorus at the start of the school day.

"When I told them they won the kids lost their minds, screaming and jumping up and down," she said. "I'm pretty sure the teachers next door had to wonder what was going on."

The students — 25 will be participating in the experience — are excited and some are nervous, she said.

"They've been asking me how many people PNC seats," she said. (The Arts Center seats accommodates about 16,800 people, according to its website.)

"They're really talented and they love performing," Sherman said. "They’re a very sweet, hardworking group of kids."

The concert will be the first one most of them have ever attended, Sherman said. That night, they have to arrive an hour before the doors open so the kids can be shown the stage and where they will be standing so they know what they are supposed to do, she said.

Then when the time comes, they will sing "I Want To Know What Love Is" with Foreigner; it's the second-to-last song in the set, Sherman said.

A whole contingent of Manchester Township Schools parents and staff is planning to attend to show their support for the kids, said Dina Silvestri, the district's spokesperson.

In addition to the chance to perform, Foreigner is donating $500 to the Manchester Middle School Chorus program to support opportunities for future students, Silvestri said.

"I am so excited for this incredible opportunity for my students," Sherman said. "They have worked so hard and truly have a passion for singing and performing. We cannot wait to rock out with Foreigner!"