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High School Choirs from Around SC Converge on ETV
for Rare Opportunity to Sing for a Statewide Audience

REVISED

For Immediate Release
October 16, 2009

Columbia, SC… You might have heard about a new television show starring an always-upbeat choir director, who takes a group of aspiring high school students under his wing, channels their energies and inspires them to reach new heights with their musical performances. If you were thinking of Fox Channel's "Glee," think again. Think closer to home. In fact, think right here in the Palmetto State.

On Friday, Oct. 30, world-renowned composer, conductor, musician and arranger Tim Janis will be at ETV's Columbia studios working with 13 different South Carolina high school choirs on a musical collaboration of epic proportions for a new program that will air on ETV in March 2010. With the working title "Celebrate America," the new program features hundreds of high school students from across South Carolina, including:

• Hammond High School
• Orangeburg-Wilkinson High School
• Belton-Honea Path High School
• York Comprehensive High School
• Dorman High School 1
• Dorman High School 2
• South Pointe High School
• Gilbert High School
• Waccamaw High School
• Summerville High School
• Clover High School
• Northwestern High School
• Governor's School for the Arts

Janis picked a song for each of the choirs to perform, including heart-lifting arrangements of everything from "America the Beautiful" and "Amazing Grace" to "Shenandoah" and "Danny Boy." The choirs have been working on their selection for many weeks, and will be going into the ETV studios on Oct. 30 to record their performances.

The end result will be a concert featuring some of the best young voices in the state, and while this broadcast will be seen all across South Carolina, footage from some of the performances might also be included in a nationwide production that Janis is working with high school choirs from other states.

Janis, who has worked with such icons of the entertainment industry as Paul McCartney, Billy Joel, Ray Charles, James Earl Jones and George Clooney, said that his vision for the "Celebrate America" concert is two-fold: to not only support public television and the arts, but also to support students that are working to give back to their community through the arts.

The kind of musical feat Janis will pull off with this massive undertaking is not necessarily an unusual effort for the man whose compositions have been called "music with a mission." Previously, Janis has performed and recorded in South Africa with Sinikithemba, an all female, all HIV-positive choir that spreads a unifying message in the midst of Africa’s AIDS crisis. He has also brought his musical message to mainland China with a series of concerts, and back to Africa in collaboration with the humanitarian organization Church World Service for Kenya’s School Safe Zones Project.

South Carolina ETV is the state's public educational broadcasting network with 11 television and eight radio transmitters, and a multi-media educational system in more than 2,500 schools, colleges, businesses and government agencies. Using television, radio and the web, SCETV's mission is to enrich lives by educating children, informing and connecting citizens, celebrating our culture and environment and instilling the joy of learning.

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For more information, contact Rob Schaller at (803) 737-6556 or rschaller@scetv.org.