SOUTH PORTLAND – Bluegrass, an American roots music defined by upbeat tempos played with fiddles, banjos and other stringed instruments, is not a genre typically found in a high school choral group’s repertoire.

And for the 100 area students presenting Carol Barnett’s “The World Beloved: A Bluegrass Mass,” last weekend as part of the annual Choral Masterworks Festival at South Portland High School, it was unlike anything they had ever sung before.

“It is definitely a challenging piece,” said Ali Abramson, a junior at South Portland High School, who has participated in the festival before. “We are not used to something like this. We are all working really hard on it. I think we all sound beautiful together. With so many schools there are so many sounds coming into it.”

Since 1997, the festival, started by former Gorham High School Choral Director Darrell Morrill, has been bringing together students from area high schools to perform challenging choral works not typically taken on at individual schools.

In years past, students have performed works by composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph Haydn and Antonio Vivaldi, as well as more recent composers, such as John Rutter, Benjamin Britten, Daniel Pinkham and Carl Orff. Last year the concert featured Paul Basler’s “Missa Kenya.”

South Portland’s director of vocal music, Beverly Hosic, said Dr. Richard Russell, a professor of music at the University of Southern Maine and the series’ guest conductor, originally suggested that the students do work by Vivaldi or Mozart again, but eventually settled on Barnett’s 2006 piece – which combines classical music arrangements with the bluegrass sounds of banjo, mandolin and fiddle music. It’s a work he had never conducted before, and until last weekend it had never been performed in Maine.

Barnett, who lives in Minnesota and currently teaches at Augsburg College in Minneapolis, has been creating music in all genres since the 1970s. In 2006, with the help of librettist Marisha Chamberlain, Barnett composed “The World Beloved: A Bluegrass Mass.” It was originally performed by Minnesota-based bluegrass band Monroe Crossing and choral group VocalEssence.

It was the kind of work Hosic and her fellow choral directors had never tried to do, until now. Taking on such a piece, she said, provides a tremendous learning opportunity for students.

“This festival is an excellent opportunity for high school singers to come together to perform a major work; hence, the name Masterworks Festival,” said Hosic. “Most of us would not tackle a piece this large on our own, and especially wouldn’t have the finances to hire a musical ensemble to accompany.”

“The students get a great opportunity to work with a well-respected director, to sing with their peers from other schools and sing really challenging music that requires the forces of many,” said Michelle Snow, music teacher at Westbrook High School, who started preparing her students for the concert in January.

Hosic said the camaraderie the group, which included students from Massabesic High School, Oxford Hills High School, South Portland High School and Westbrook High School, gets from singing together in such a festival is unmatched.

“There is nothing like singing together in a big work,” she said. After singing the Masterwork together, students from the four schools performed pieces they had been working on at their individual schools.

“It’s been really interesting,” Margo Carroll, a junior at Westbrook High School, said of the piece. “It’s cool to interact with the other schools and see how compatible we are. It’s definitely different because it is such an interesting piece musically. It’s been a lot of fun.”

Westbrook High School senior Stephanie Brown, who has performed in the festival for four years, said the piece was much more challenging than other works she has performed as part of the festival.

“It’s totally a different experience. It’s a good experience because it broadens the style we are used to performing. It’s harder than the other Masterworks, because it bring a whole new style to the classical works,” said Brown, who hopes to continue her participation in choir and musical theater at the University of Southern Maine, where she will be studying elementary education.

Hosic said many of the other schools that normally participate in the festival were unable to do so this year because of prior commitment. Gorham High School was performing their spring musical “The Music Man,” Greely High School was away on tour and Scarborough High School’s choral group was unavailable.

“The feeling of coming together to sing such beautiful music up on stage is such a good feeling,” said South Portland High School senior Jon-Luc Donnangelo.

It is a feeling that Dennis Boyd Jr., the middle school and high school choral director in the Oxford Hills school district, knows well, having sung in the festival as a student at Noble High School years ago.

“I sang in it in high school,” he said. “It was a great experience and I wanted to give that sort of experience to my students. I am proud of the kids.”

This was South Portland’s first time hosting the concert series. It went well and, Hosic said, she received positive feedback to the concert offering. So much so, she said, that South Portland will play host to the concert again next year.

Hosic, who has been teaching music at the high school for 20 years, said the concert would not have been made possible without the help of the South Portland Music Boosters.

“They are so supportive of the arts in South Portland,” she said. “I can’t say enough wonderful things about this dedicated group of parents.”

Students in the South Portland High School Chamber Singers took part in a special program at their high school on Saturday, hosting the annual high school Choral Masterworks Festival. The musical Red Riots shared the stage with groups from Massabesic, Westbrook and Oxford Hills high schools to perform the Maine premiere of “The World Beloved: a Bluegrass Mass,” under the direction of Dr. Robert Russell, a professor of music at the University of Southern Maine. (Photo by Rich Obrey)