Mountain View High School choral students perform with Foreigner

     Members of Bella Voce, Mountain View High School’s advanced treble chorus, joined Grammy-award winning band, Foreigner, on stage at Ameris Bank Amphitheatre in July to perform the band’s iconic song, “I Want to Know What Love Is.”

     Bella Voce received the amazing honor of singing on stage with Foreigner as a result of winning a choir radio competition as advertised by radio station, 97.1 The River. A video recording of Bella Voce performing the song, “I Want to Know What Love Is,” was submitted to the radio station in March by Mountain View High choral director, Sabrina Robertson. Radio host English Nick contacted Robertson in May 2026 to share the amazing news that Bella Voce’s recording was selected as the winning choir performance, earning them the exclusive opportunity to join Foreigner on stage at the Ameris Bank Amphitheatre for the band’s 50th anniversary tour.

     "It was truly a surreal experience to share the stage with such an iconic band and sing with them! I've very grateful for the opportunity, and I love that they're giving choirs all around the nation this chance to sing with them and promote music education in schools," says Mountain View High senior and Bella Voce member, Lucy Viar.

     Robertson explains that advanced treble chorus students are selected by audition and display strong sight-reading and music theory skills. Students in advanced treble chorus meet as a class daily and often perform in Honor Chorus, All-State Chorus, and other performance organizations within the community. 

     “Students in this class commit to honing their performance skills each school year,” Robertson says. “[For this performance], students practiced for a week to learn the song form and master the chorus portion of the song in three-part harmony.” 

     In preparation, Robertson provided each student with the lyrics and used the solfège method where each note in a scale is represented by a syllable, “Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do,” to teach voice parts to the treble singers assigned as first sopranos, second sopranos, and altos. Students were also taught simple expressive movements that were included in the audition video and later performed on stage with Foreigner.

     “Performing with Foreigner was a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” adds Isabel Rees, Mountain View High senior and Bella Voce member. “Sharing the stage with my choir and seeing how much they value music education made it a night I'll never forget."

     On the night of the performance, the group was escorted on stage by Foreigner’s stage manager where they sang before nearly 11,000 people in attendance. Foreigner was one of three groups to perform that evening. The band’s lead singer, Luis Maldonado, publicly praised the students on stage at the conclusion of their performance and talked about the importance of supporting music programs through organizations such as the GRAMMY Foundation. 

“The performance with Foreigner was AMAZING! Students sang with lots of confidence and expression,” Robertson says.

     In addition to the experience of performing with Foreigner, the Mountain View High choral program received a donation of $500 from the band and will use the funds to purchase additional music and instructional resources for students.

     Please visit this link to view the performance.