Millersville Students Get “Pitch Perfect” with Foreigner

Millersville students “want to know what love is,” and Foreigner is going to show them on Feb. 21 at the American Music Theatre in Lancaster. Foreigner and Bose Audio have teamed up to sponsor the Grammy Foundation, which supports music in public education as one of its goals. It is kicking off the campaign by working with students in Millersville’s Music Business Technology (MBT) program. Students in the MBT program will be given the opportunity to participate in the background vocals for the Foreigners chart topping song, “I Want to Know What Love is.”

After finding out that the band had a program to support the Grammy Foundation, Dr. Barry Atticks, director of music business technology, contacted Foreigner’s manager Phil Carson and coordinator John Lappen about getting students involved.

Millersville students will also sell CDs for the band with all proceeds going to the Grammy Foundation to support its music education mission. The MBT students will get to interact with the band earlier in the day, as Foreigner’s rhythm guitarist/saxophonist Thom Gimbel will be hosting a clinic for the students on performing and touring.

“I wanted to provide an opportunity for my students to talk face-to-face with the band and be able to learn about the life of being a touring musician, so I talked to Phil [Carson] about making this clinic happen, and he did,” said Atticks.

In another special opportunity, the Millersville Chorale was asked by Carson to be the first university group to open for Foreigner that night. The 24-voice choral group will be performing a cappella arrangements of classic rock songs.

The Millersville students participating include Brynn Atticks, Danielle Bertucci, Reed Cormier, Colin DiLucido, Colin Durborow, Justine Franzi, Jeff Grey, Chris Grogan, Luke Helker,  Brian Holmes, Greg Kneiss, Katlyn Lehr, Jeff McKinnon, Joe Migliore, Nick Mitchell, Andrew Pappasergi, Logan Ressler, Natalie Savage, Andrew Schwartz, Ian Solomon and Marcus Tavani.