CHINA GROVE — Getting to open for a band like Foreigner probably wasn’t on many high schoolers radars going into 2023, but Carson High School students will get to do just that on Wednesday in Charlotte.

Before the band Loverboy and Foreigner take the stage, the Carson Honors Choir will perform two songs in front of the crowd at the PNC Music Pavilion. 

Megan Wyatt’s choir was selected through a radio contest to open for the famous band after submitting an audition tape of their rendition of James Taylor’s “Your Smiling Face.”

Despite being born almost 30 years after Foreigner formed, the students are stoked about performing at the amphitheater and its 19,500-person capacity.

Senior Celia Sifford admitted that she knows a little bit about Foreigner.

“I know that their songs are awesome, and we get to perform for them,” Sifford said.

Junior Makenna Hinson added, “I am pretty excited about it. It’s a big opportunity that not a lot of people will ever get, to perform with a famous singing group.”

Hinson and Sifford joined their choir mates at Carson High on Thursday. School is not in session yet, but choir practice was in full swing.

Thankfully, they already have some practice with the song they will be performing since “Your Smiling Face” earned them the spot to begin with.

They will also perform Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing,” of sing-along fame.

In preparation for the concert, Thursday was a full practice day for the choir.

“We are rehearsing from 10 (a.m.) to 3 (p.m.),” Sifford said. “We are going to have an all-day rehearsal and work on all the songs that we have prepared. From there, we will see what else they want us to do.”

All the time and effort will be worth it come next Wednesday.

“We get to go backstage,” Sifford said. “I don’t know if we will be backstage with (the band), so fingers crossed we get to meet them.”

The Carson High Honor Choir’s participation in a Foreigner concert is part of a program the band got involved with 16 years ago that helps finance underfunded art departments around the country.

Foreigner got involved with the program 16 years ago. John Lappen, a music producer, consultant and rep, spoke about the program and its impact on classrooms. 

“It is called Music in the Schools,” Lappen said. “They have been helping to raise funds for grade schools, junior high schools, universities etc., for programs whose arts programs have been devastated by budget cuts … When education does budget cuts, the first thing to get cut is the arts.”

While that initially bummed out the band and its representatives, it would soon serve as a motivator. 

“We came up with what turned into the idea of having choirs sing with the band on ‘I Want to Know What Love Is,’ the most iconic of all their iconic hits. When that song was first released, a gospel choir from New Jersey sang with the band on it. That was another thing that Mick Jones, the band co-founder, said, why don’t we do that but with kids.”

During this summer leg of the band’s tour, which is being billed as their last, choirs are given the opportunity to open for Foreigner. So, the Carson Honors Choir will be one of the last to do so. However, the legacy will live on in more ways than one.

“We always donate $500 to the school’s choir program,” Lappen said. “That’s not a ton of money, let’s be honest … but a lot of these choir directors have told me that money has helped them buy supplies or go on trips to perform in choir competitions in things like that.”

Lappen, who has been in the music industry for decades, said the program has been the “most meaningful thing he has had a chance to do in the music business.”

It’s not just Lappen, though. The band is happy to do it. For one bandmate, Kelly Hanson, it is particularly impactful. 

“When the choir is finished, Hanson always turns to them and thanks them for singing with the band,” Lappen said. “You would think it would be the other way around. Then he turns around to the crowd and says these beautiful people that just performed with us, please help support schools and schools everywhere by donating to make sure they keep arts programs alive.”

Hanson is one of the bandmates who was in a choir when he was younger.

Who knows, one day, one of the Carson choir members could be turning to a group of kids behind them and saying, “thanks for backing me up.”