Free concert in Perham marks Lakes Area Chorale decade celebration

A free Lakes Area Chorale concert brought a no-cost night of live music to downtown Perham, with doors opening at 6:30 p.m. and the performance running from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Perham Center for the Arts, 101 NE 5th Street.

The concert was part of the chorale’s Icons and Anthems series and folded Perham into a wider lakes-area celebration of the group’s tenth year in Detroit Lakes. The program reached beyond one city, giving Otter Tail County residents a local stop in a regional run that also included a Saturday, April 18 performance at the Historic Holmes Theatre in Detroit Lakes.

For Perham, the appeal was immediate: free admission, a downtown venue, and a concert built around familiar music. The Detroit Lakes listing said the chorale planned to perform songs from the early 1960s through today, a range that likely gave older listeners a chance to hear music from their own era while also offering younger attendees something they recognized. The same listing identified Blake Weitzel as director and April Spaeth as accompanist.

The Perham Center for the Arts said the concert was made possible by a grant from the Lakes Region Arts Council, underscoring how local arts in smaller communities often depend on outside support as well as volunteer audience turnout. Free-will donations were accepted to help cover the chorale’s expenses.

That model fits the role the Perham arts center has tried to play since it was founded in 2012. Its stated mission is to preserve and maintain the building’s tradition of service to the Perham community and beyond, while fostering arts and education for people of all ages, interests and abilities. Hosting a free concert there kept that mission visible in a practical way, giving families, seniors and other residents an affordable evening out without leaving town.

The Perham stop also showed how regional arts programming works on the ground in Otter Tail County. A concert series like Icons and Anthems is not just a performance date on a calendar. It is a shared cultural event that links Perham, Detroit Lakes and the broader lakes area through local venues, arts funding and a lineup designed to be accessible to the public.