Visa applications for choirs in Zambia and Nigeria invited to perform at the festival were rejected by U.S. consulates in those countries. Another choir, one from Algeria that was scheduled to perform at a festival in Idaho, also had its visa applications denied.

The Missoula festival had been considering adding the Algerian choir to its roster.

Meantime, the Anson City Choir of South Korea is questionable after a dozen of its members had their tourist visa applications rejected by the United States and were told they must apply for a “P” visa, which covers foreign athletes and entertainers who enter the U.S. to compete or perform for money.

The choral festival, which runs July 12-16, is a nonprofit entity, and does not pay choirs to perform.

“It's all very arbitrary and capricious,” said Bill Martinez, a San Francisco attorney who has helped the choral festival navigate the rocky road of visa applications created after the terrorist attacks on America on Sept. 11, 2001. “We're not putting our best foot forward in the diplomatic world. We're talking about bringing in a choir from South Korea - come on, they're our neighbors and friends. It's the whole point of the festival.”

Two-thirds of the Korean choir has 10-year visas still in effect, but one-third - including the choir's accompanist - do not.

“B-1 visas - tourist visas - are what all the other choirs get in on, but the embassy in Korea is evidently on a different page,” Park said.

A call to the U.S. State Department seeking comment was not returned Wednesday.

Missoula's festival is also unsure of the status of the Ukraine's Boyan choir. Park hasn't heard whether the choir's visa applications were approved, and has a Russian interpreter coming in Thursday to place a call to the director.

“We're hoping no news is not bad news,” Park said.  

It creates a logistical nightmare for the festival, which will soon get its programs back from the printer knowing the schedule may be wrong.

“We do contingency scheduling for many situations,” Park said. “It's like a big math problem. It's a matrix that shifts all the time.”

Park said the thousands of people who attend the festival will be encouraged to check the Missoulian or the choral festival's Web site for the latest information on what choirs are here, and when and where they will be performing.

More than a dozen choirs from Australia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, India, Slovenia, Taiwan, Wales and America are expected.

Park said his “gut instinct” is that it is even tougher to get choirs into the United States now than it was during the last festival in 2003, which was the first held since the terrorist attacks. The Navrachana School Choir of Vadodara, India, had to go to the embassy in Bombay and perform to prove to U.S. officials it actually was a choir before its visas were issued for this year's festival.

“That's show biz,” said Martinez, who has specialized in helping musicians and artists obtain visas since a Cuban group was refused entrance to participate in a Latin American music festival in San Francisco Martinez co-founded more than 20 years ago.

The mechanics of getting performers into the country are easier now than they were in 2003, Martinez said. There's an avenue, called premium processing, instituted by U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services that expedites visa applications.

But it costs $1,000.

“If you're an entertainer coming here and you're going to make $100,000 or something on tour, that's nothing,” Martinez said. “But if you're a nonprofit, that extra $1,000 really hurts.”

It's what the South Korean choir will have to do if it is to perform in Missoula - and the cost is $1,000 per person.

“Here we go,” Martinez said. “They've already paid for their regular visa application that was turned down. Now it's an extra $1,000, plus the $190 registration fee. It will probably be another $100 to use Fed Ex to get the paperwork back and forth. Even then, there's no guarantee the applications will be approved.

“It's a very discouraging system and it's cloaked in this veil of national security.”

The bigger question, Martinez said, is why a choir in the Czech Republic can get visas through normal channels, and why one in South Korea - one that filled out the exact same paperwork - is forced to jump through so many hoops.

“Even with premium processing, it takes 10 days to find out whether you've been approved,” Martinez said. “It takes another couple days to get all the paperwork where it needs to be. What's today? June 28? The festival starts July 12? It'd be a real nail-biter.”

It's unfortunate, Park said, because the Anson City Choir would be one of the 2006 festival's highlights.

“They're really top-notch,” he said. “They've released several recordings and they've been to the World Choral Symposium, which is considered the Olympics of choral music.”  

The International Choral Festival, which began in 1987 and is held once every three years, was the brainchild of University of Montana professor Donald Carey and the Missoula Mendelssohn Club, a community men's chorus he conducts.

More than 90 choirs representing more than 40 nations will have participated in the festival after this year.

Both Park and Martinez lament the fact that the U.S. government is making it so hard for the festival to do what it does best - offer great hospitality, experiences and music to people from other countries, who take that view of America home with them to spread.

“We shouldn't want to close our doors at a time when our reputation internationally isn't so hot,” Martinez said. “Things like the International Choral Festival shine a better light on our society.”

The lawyer said it's gotten so crazy that a 10-member London musical group he was helping had seven of its members approved for visas that allowed them the multiple entries into the U.S. they sought, while the other three were denied multiple entries and were given only single-entry visas. The reason?

“Seven got in one line,” he said, “and the other three got in a different line.”

Martinez has helped Cuban bands like the Buena Vista Social Club come to the United States, and he was a major player in organizing Audioslave's 2005 concert in Havana - the first time an American band performed in Communist Cuba.

But the Bush administration has since announced no American musicians can perform in Cuba, and no Cuban musicians will be allowed in the United States.

Martinez, Park said, “has a very big heart. He keeps his fees very low for us because he understands our mission, which is bringing people together under peaceful circumstances for music.”

But, Park said, the mission is getting harder, not easier, as more years separate us from 9/11.

Reprinted with permission from The Missoulian: http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2006/06/29/news/local/news04.txt

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