By ANDRIANNA MARSTON

alm045@latech.edu

 

Tech’s Chamber Singers are using a cell phone fundraiser to help pay for their trip to Austria. 

The choir is collecting cell phones to go on an international trip June 26-July 3, 2006, to Salzburg, Austria, to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s birth, Laura Thompson, an assistant professor of music, said.

“Students will have the opportunity to work with internationally-known conductors Janos Czifra and Dr. Eph Ehly,” Thompson said.

Eco Phones, a cell phone recycling and fundraising company, will award money to the  choir for every donated phone, Thompson said.

“We are asking students to donate phones that are able to light up and with no significant scratches,” Thompson said.

Donations can be dropped off in Howard Auditorium, Center for the Performing Arts.

“Students who want to donate old phones can come by the office, or we will even make a way to come by and pick the phones up,” Thompson said. “If we collect enough cell phones, it will help with our expenses.”

Erica Fairburn, president of the Chamber Singers and a senior double major in vocal performance and business management, said some Greek organizations and local high schools are participating in the fundraiser.

“The participating high schools will receive a dollar for each donated cell phone, and the same for the Greeks,” Fairburn said. “However, each Greek organization will be competing against each other, and whichever team donates the most cell phones will receive the money Nov. 1 at our fall concert.”

Eco Phones will send a check to the choir for all donated phones. The choir will then disperse money to the high schools and Greek organizations they promised and whatever is left over will be for the choir to spend on their trip, Fairburn said.

She said the trip is an honorary event.

“The choir has to be recommended to perform at these events,” Fairburn said. “This is a big honor because not only are we representing Tech, we are representing the state.”

Fairburn said the choir will only sing classical music at the festival.

“Since it is an event in honor of Mozart, we will perform Mozart’s Coronation, a selection of works composed by him,” Fairburn said.

Caleb Smith, a senior marketing major, said he has been in the Chamber Singers for over two years.

“I sing bass for the choir,” Smith said. “I joined the choir in the spring of 2003 and I’ve been an active [member] the majority of the time.”

Smith said the trip is not only an honor to him, but it is also the experience of a lifetime.

“I’ve been on many small trips with the choir to Shreveport and other places,” Smith said. “But I’ve never traveled out of the state [with the group] much less out of the country.”