Choir has become the most popular elective class at Luverne Middle-High School.
Participation has topped 49 percent as 306 students chose learning to sing over any other elective option during the 2025-26 school year.
This fall marked a greater-than-normal influx of freshman students — 60 of them — for choir director Seana Graber, who has been teaching music for 36 years.
In response, she formed the Treble-Bass Choir with 24 freshman boys. This group joins the sixth-grade, seventh and eighth-grade, treble and concert choir under Grable’s direction.
The Tenor-Bass Choir made its performance debut Thursday night, Oct. 30.
Wearing black dress shirts and black pants, a few of the members shared why they chose the choir elective as they waited for the concert to begin.
At first, they joked, they took the class because choir “looks good on a resume” and “it’s an easy class to get an ‘A’ (even though one member admitted he was getting a C).”
They also said the choir room is a place where “we can be loud,” even though Graber “likes us singing, not talking,” and she holds her students to a “very high standard.”
Graber explained, “If I didn’t, we would not sound good, and I know the kids would not want to be part of a group that isn’t good.”
Creating the right tone or singing with “big” sound is something the boys embraced, stating “how we sound when we are good” as the final reason they joined choir.
Audience applause offered positive feedback after the performance of the Treble-Bass Choir’s first song, “Vive la Compagnie,” which translates to “Long live friendship” or camaraderie.
“Believe me they have camaraderie,” Graber said. “It’s great. It’s good energy and it’s a lot of fun — once we get singing.”
Choral participation high in other grades
Balance is key to any group vocal performance, and Graber faced a challenge this spring when 60 freshman students (65 percent of the class of 92) decided to choose choir as an elective course.
More than half of the freshmen were boys, and Graber couldn’t achieve the balance in tone with so many tenors and basses in the 9-12 concert choir.
As a result, she embraced the boys’ desire to be loud.
“They (boys) sing out — they are not afraid – where the girls are so timid,” Graber said.
As a result, Graber created the Tenor-Bass Choir in order to keep balance for the 9-12 choir and give everyone an opportunity to perform in a choir.
The Tenor-Bass Choir is the first group of its kind for Graber and perhaps for southwest Minnesota.
“I don’t know why it is — I doubt it’s in every school — but the boys in Luverne can sing,” she said.
And it’s not only the freshman boys who chose choir as an elective course this year.
Fifty-three percent or 147 middle-school students out of 276 chose to participate in choir.
At the high school level, 45 percent of the ninth- through twelfth-grade students joined choir.
In total, 49 percent or 305 6-12 students participate in choir out of a student body numbering 624, reflecting a growing trend.
More than a decade ago, the Treble Choir was started to accommodate the influx of freshman girls who chose the choir elective. That group has since been expanded to include freshman and sophomore girls.
Student participation by grade level in a Luverne choir in 2025-26 includes:
•Sixth grade, 51 percent (50 out of 98 students).
•Seventh-eighth grade, 55 percent (97 out of 175).
•Ninth grade, 65 percent (60 out of 92 students).
•Tenth grade, 48 percent (37 out of 77 students).
•Eleventh grade, 33 percent (28 out of 86 students).
•Twelfth grade, 35 percent (34 out of 96 students).
By Mavis Fodness, Rock County Star Herald