Members of the choirs at Rickson Ridge Public School and Mitchell Woods Public School will share the stage with Coco Love Alcorn at a special event April 3 at Dublin United Church.
The choirs, which combined total around 100 students, and Alcorn will have a two-hour rehearsal workshop during the day and then the performance will be a 7 p.m.
Alcorn, whose music is a blend of pop/jazz/folk, is an accomplished Canadian recording artist, songwriter and composer who hails from Nova Scotia but now calls Owen Sound home.
She has over 10 albums to her credit and is a fixture on the Canadian summer festival scene.
Rickson Ridge music teacher Aaron Duncan put the event together.
"It will be a full sound, that's for sure," said Duncan.
Duncan got the idea two years ago when he and his family were attending the Mariposa Folk Festival near Orillia.
"One of the things artists attending that festival have to do is a workshop, so Coco put on a workshop that was a pop up choir. You attend a 45 minute session where she teaches you the choir parts for a song and then an hour or two later you perform them," Duncan said.
"I always do things with my teacher's hat not too far away and I thought 'this would be an amazing thing to try with students.'"
He eventually reached out to the singer/songwriter's management team and things went quickly.
Alcorn has worked with choirs on many occasions and has expressed how much she loves the collaborative nature of the experience.
Duncan only told his choir about the event last week.
"I unveiled the idea to them this past week because I wanted to make sure we had all our ducks in a row before I told them, I was quite thrilled with how excited they were," Duncan said.
"We actually performed one of her tunes in December, so they have a bit of familiarity.
"They're being thrown into the fire a little bit, but it's a great opportunity for students to be thrown into a professional setting and 'here you go, learn stuff, stand and deliver.'"
They don't know what song they will be singing until the day of the event.
"I told my group the other day to say 'have a listen to these four or five songs to give you an idea.' I was kind of worried, but her management said 'we do these kinds of things all the time.'"
Duncan said Alcorn is not only talented, but also engaging.
"She's a dynamite singer. Just dynamite. She was also great with people....very open to exchanging ideas with fans and making everyone involved. The kind of person I want to have in front of my own students."
