LARGE CONCERT: CHOIR FROM CHAFFEE WILL BE PART OF PBS PROGRAM

CHAFFEE - Next week's airing of the World's Largest Concert from Walt Disney World near Orlando, Fla., will feature a local elementary choir.

The Chaffee Elementary Select Choir will be shown in a 10- to 20- second taped clip when the concert is aired next Thursday on PBS, the school's music director, Pam Dumey, said.

Fifty fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders from the school will sing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," she said. The broadcast will start at 11:30 a.m.

"It's a big honor," Dumey said, "because we competed with schools from all over the United States to be part of this broadcast." She said she didn't know the number of schools the local choir had competed against.

In the World's Largest Concert, more than eight million schoolchildren, teachers, and others from around the country simultaneously perform the same concert program.

"The whole idea behind the World's Largest Concert is you get the music ahead of time and you learn the music, and everyone turns on the television and watches and sings along," said Dumey. "This is the fourth year that we've done it. This is just our first year that we've applied and got to be part of the broadcast."

Dumey said she submitted a video proposal for the choir in September, which was selected for the submission of a video tape. That video tape and others were chosen and put together into the program, she said.

KFVS TV-12 taped the choir at Old McKendree Chapel at Jackson, she said.

"Old McKendree Chapel was representative of our part of the country, and that's what they're going for: to portray the United States. That happened to be a historical landmark that happened to be in our area."

In addition to "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," choir members will sing "All Night, All Day." Dumey said the second song will be done as a partner song to create harmony.

On March 7, she said, the choir will perform the entire World's Largest Concert in the center court of West Park Mall in Cape Girardeau. The concert will start at 1 p.m., she said.

The televised concert is a national centerpiece of "Music in Our Schools Month," held in March. The observance focuses attention on music education in America's public schools. The national observance is sponsored by the Music Educators National Conference, a 60,000-member professional association to which Dumey said she belongs.