WAITSBURG – The Southeastern Washington Music Educators Association (SEWMEA) high school mass band and choir will return to Waitsburg on Wed., Oct. 25. Hundreds of high school musicians from small schools all over southeastern Washington will bus in to play and sing together.

Bands and choirs from Touchet to Rosalia, and Kahlotus to Asotin, will practice together all afternoon and perform in an extraordinary concert that evening at 6:30 p.m.

Expert conductors will lead these huge groups. Shawn Bowman, the recently retired Asotin music man, will conduct the MASS Band and Colleen Ochocinski, the young director of choral music at Walla Walla High School, will conduct the choir.

The music will be big, too! The chorus of 100 voices will sing Psallite, The Old Mill, and The Lion King.

A line of xylophone players will front the big band for “Mallet Maniacs!” Then comes video game music from “Starcraft ii – Legacy of the Void,” and the lush ballad, “The Water is Wide,” followed by the grand Wagnerian opera music, “Ride of the Valkyries!”

The concert begins at 6:30 p.m. in the Waitsburg High School gym and lasts just under an hour. Admission is $4 for adults, $3 for seniors and students, but just $10 for the whole family.