Multiple districts — Performing a music concert in the 95-degree heat in Fontainebleau, France, was one of many unforgettable experiences for about 200 Michigan students during a two-week tour through Europe this summer.
The sweaty concert band performance took place in a region known for its rich history tied to King Louis IX, Napoleon Bonaparte and Marie Antoinette. It followed a performance in a park in London and was en route to concerts in Switzerland, Austria and Germany.
The troupe of traveling musicians, including students from Lowell, Grandville and Caledonia high schools, was touring with Michigan Musicians Abroad, an Indianapolis-based tour operator.
The group included about 140 musicians, 60 choir members and 32 staff members and chaperones. Students were nominated to participate by staff at their schools and prepared before the trip at a three-day rehearsal camp at Grand Valley State University.
In Europe, the musicians performed more than a dozen songs at each concert, said Maya Kemp, who graduated from Lowell High School in May.
“The stakes were certainly upped a little bit because we had so many pieces,” Maya said. “At Lowell, we tend to focus on two or three for months at a time, and here we had 14 in a span of a week.”
In between concerts and charter bus rides, they toured medieval castles, crossed the English Channel by ferry, rose to the top of the Eiffel Tower, took in the pre-Olympics hubbub, explored bustling cities and breathed in cool mountain air from famous Alpine peaks high in the clouds.
“I’ve always been intrigued by going to Europe … and I was also able to play the flute, so I was very excited about that,” said flutist Margaret Rodriguez, a junior. “It was really fun. Sometimes it was nerve-wracking because I knew no one in the audience.”
Maya Kemp, who plays the clarinet, said the trip was an opportunity she had to seize.
“It’s one thing to go to a place and another to go and perform for people. I will not be able to do that again so I couldn’t pass up.”
Concerts featured mostly Americana-style songs, said Lowell Middle School Band Director Kate Bredwell, who accompanied students along with her husband, Bryan Bredwell. Both play in the Grand Rapids Symphonic Band.
The European audience enjoyed hearing those songs from the U.S. group, she said, but the musicians also peppered in other numbers pertaining to the regions they were in.
Maya noticed the impact of their music on those listening. “The audiences are pretty fun,” she said. “In Austria there were a bunch of old people boogying to Chicago (the band).”
‘The stakes were certainly upped a little bit because we had so many pieces. At Lowell, we tend to focus on two or three for months at a time, and here we had 14 in a span of a week.’
— Lowell High School musician Maya Kemp
Added Makayla Socall, a 2023 graduate who now attends Western Michigan University and plays the piccolo in the marching band: “People in Switzerland also really loved our music; I saw a bunch of people gazing at the choir and I was like, ‘I love these people.’”
“Something cool about music for me is that it can bring people together from all walks of life,” Kate Bredwell said. “It’s neat for me to see how a group can quickly bond over playing and being musicians, and coming together to perform really well.”
Travel also enriches the experience, she said. It shows students “how much more there is out there beyond your own town or school. That’s a really neat perspective kids can gain, and they got to do it through music. We got to connect through our music with people in other countries.”
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