A local choir received a once-in-a-lifetime chance to perform with a world-recognized vocal ensemble.

On Tuesday, 52 Seymour High School students traveled to perform with British vocal ensemble VOCES8 at Ball State University’s Sursa Hall in Muncie.

VOCES8 has performed across Europe, North America and Asia at a variety of prestigious venues.

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The group performs a wide variety of music, said Kyle Karum, director of choral music at Seymour High School.

“Regardless of what music you like, you will probably hear something you like, whether that’s contemporary music, tradition, folk. They’re very eclectic,” Karum said.

The Seymour choir performed “Caledonia” by Dougie Maclean with VOCES8. Maclean is a Scottish folk singer, and the song is in his style, Caledonia being the Latin name given to Scotland.

“I like the dynamic contrast in the song,” Seymour senior Jenna Gray said. “It has several key changes in it, which can make it difficult.”

Karum said part of the difficulty of music is that it takes no experience to tell when something is not correct but a great deal of experience to figure out how to fix it.

This is complicated by the fact that the musical selection has many moving parts that strike as many as eight parts of harmony with each other, allowing them to mesh; however, if one of these parts is slightly off, the dissonance created by the sound makes it very easy to notice, he said.

Regardless of the difficulties in the song, Karum believed his choir was up for the challenge.

“It’s a very challenging piece. It has several key changes that can trick your ears,” he said. “They are rising to the occasion. They know it’s go time.”

The choir members had extra practices during free times and club activity times to prepare for the performance.

Since practices with the entire choir are difficult to schedule, many of the section leaders stepped up to take work with their individual sections to make sure they were ready for the performance.

“Not every choir gets this opportunity, and we may not get it ever again,” Karum said.

The Seymour choir students also had a musical clinic with VOCES8 and sat in on a musical clinic with Ball State University’s Chamber Choir with VOCES8.

Senior Sam Schmidt said it was a great opportunity.

“I think it’s awesome,” he said. “Every year, (Karum) has shown us videos of VOCES8, and now, we (got) to sing with them.”