PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania — The 2020 Democratic National Convention kicked off Monday night with a virtual choir singing the national anthem. Philadelphia-based Commonwealth Youthchoirs debuted its “Choir Across America”—which was made up of voices representing all 50 states.
15-year-old Henry Parker was the voice representing Maine.
While Henry's family lives in Philadelphia right now, his father is from Maine, and the family has a home in Phippsburg.
Henry said his family started crying when they saw him on national television Monday night, “It really dawned on me how amazing this was when I got like 50 million pictures of myself sent to me from all of my friends and family.”
Commonwealth Youthchoirs founder Steve Fisher said he only had about ten days to get the group together for the DNC but wanted to make sure each state was represented.
"So, the kids that you saw, quite a few of them were my 800 kids because it's really amazing when you ask, how many kids have real ties to different states," Fisher explained. "Then we looked at all the states with which we had no ties and we called up the choirs that we knew in those states, and sure enough in the Northern Mariana Islands, one of the seven U.S. territories, we found a choir and a singer and there she was up on the screen with Henry, representing Maine."
We'll have more on Henry and the work that went into putting it together on Friday night on 207.
Watch the full performance here:
