Travelling across the pond to visit England for a vacation is one thing, but it’s entirely different when you’re in England to perform with your high school band.
Yet, that’s what 29 students and eight adults from R.F. Staples did March 21-29.
The trip was the brainchild of band teacher Anne-Marie Switzer to mark her sixth year teaching at the school and sixth year working with the Grade 12 musicians, whom she had started teaching when they were just starting at the school in Grade 7.
“It’s kind of like my graduation gift to them,” she said. “They’ve always just gone on little trips just within our province, so this year I wanted to take them on a really big trip because I just felt like we’ve been together for years.”
The nine-day, seven-night trip took the band all over the English countryside, with stops in London, Bath and Stratford upon Avon. Sights they got to see included Stonehenge, Windsor Castle and the Tower of London.
With 29 teenagers on the trip, it should come as no surprise there were differing opinions about what was the most significant or most memorable part of the excursion.
Flautist and Grade 12 student Hannah Tabert said she felt the part of the trip that stood out for her was the clinic the band did at St. Peter’s Church in Vauxhall in London.
The clinic was a chance for the band to work with Geoff Harrniess, music director with the London Youth Wind Band. The time spent with Harrniess greatly improved the band’s performance, Switzer said, as their technique and confidence soared.
Switzer herself found the clinic at St. Peter’s to be memorable, but for a different reason.
“I’m such a classical music geek that I was freaking out that I was about to conduct a band in the very spot that Mozart, Handl and Bach had once performed themselves,” she said.
In addition to being able to perform in the same place as three of music’s biggest names, she said she was blown away by the church’s acoustics, which she called “unbelievable,” and far and away better than anything Westlock has to offer.
“Our poor gym just doesn’t cut it when it comes to acoustics, and the CAT (Cultural Arts Theatre) is made to deaden sound,” Switzer said.
Including the clinic, the band put on three shows while in England. For Tabert, it was almost as if she was performing back at home.
“Playing for people in London is not different from playing for people in Canada,” she said, explaining the audience reaction is more or less the same.
Trumpeter and fellow Grade 12 student Brett Maul took a more overarching tack when talking about the trip, saying he found it a great opportunity to make friends and learn and work on music with his peers.
Then there were the history lessons.
“I learned a lot about history in a friendly and fun environment,” Maul said, explaining he learned a lot about how music is tied to English history.
Switzer said her choice to take the band to England was made not because of the sights and history of the country, but for a more basic reason — language.
“I chose England because if we’re going to do a show, part of the entertainment is the fact I’m cracking jokes and the kids are doing things and I just felt if we were to go to Germany or Italy, it would be lost on those audiences because they wouldn’t understand,” she said.
Now more than two weeks after returning, Switzer said the euphoria hasn’t worn off.
“From all the sights you got to see, and the experiences you got to have, you came home and you felt like you were floating on Cloud 9,” she said.
Hopefully, the students will take the experience and treasure it well into their adult years, she added.
“I just wanted to give them a memory that will last them a lifetime.”
