Big Concert To Be Followed By Big Game

Our jazz band is preparing this afternoon for their first of two concerts in Germany.

Following the concert tonight all eyes in Germany (including our own, as we will all be attending a public viewing party to watch the game on a large screen together) will be focused on the match against Greece in the Euro Cup Quarter Finals.

For a preview of the game, see:

http://espnfc.com/en/preview/343869/preview.html

Ludwigsburg Castle Group Photo

Some People...

Over the past several days, I've come to a realization. Actually, I knew it long before we left, but it has really proved itself recently. The part about this trip that makes it so special, fun, and interesting is really the people. Even though the band is a conglomerate of North and South band students, there was always a comfortable and familiar feeling within the group. And the comfort level is even higher within smaller groups of students who have, perhaps, been performing together for years and known each other for longer. You simply won't find as many people that you enjoy the company of on other trips such as the foreign language trips, for instance. I spend hours every week with most of these people, and the opportunity to go on a tour around Europe with them is quite rare. The ancient Roman forum, the Coloseum, and the beautiful scenery and castles of Germany will still be there years from now, but this exact group of friends will not.

One of my favorite moments of our first concert in Germany was during Dreamland. As many of you know, the song has some very soft moments where any noise from around the room can be heard and distract from the performance. During one such quiet moment, the trumpets had to put a mute in - a motion that may detract from the visual effect of a completely still and focused band. It can also result in a clinking sound of the metal mute against the bell. So instead of using that section to put the mute in, all the trumpet players that i saw waited quietly without even talking about this beforehand (to my knowledge, at least). Once the faster, louder section started, we all reached down and got our mutes ready. This moment really stood out to me as an example of everyone's commitment to the band and the band's collective end result instead of students who are more self-centered and only consider their own part (it's funny because we're trumpet players). I am fortunate enough to be on this trip with individuals who understand that their own part is only a fraction of the bigger picture. What I'm getting at is that a group of people like this - a community of likeminded individuals - is hard to come by, and the opportunity to travel with them to an unfamiliar continent even more so.

Standing Ovation In Lochgau Tonight

Call Me Maybe Lip Dub - On A Mercedes-Benz Bus

With a tip of the hat to the Harvard Baseball Team (and their viral video), the District 99 Honors Band proudly presents our version of Call Me Maybe. Filmed today on the bus during our return trip from Stuttgart. We hope you enjoy!         

(Students: you probably cannot view the video while in Germany due to licensing and copyright regulations in Europe.  You should be able to see it when you return home.)

Long time no type!

My apologies for not posting a bit more regularly these past few days. It should be taken as a sign that:

1 - We are all having a marvelous time, staying busy with touring and enjoying the company of our wonderful friends and hosts.

2 - The students on our blogging team are doing an excellent job of capturing so many of the sights and experiences of the trip

I would like to add a few images that I've taken in the spirit of a picture is worth a thousand words. So, in hopefully some kind of order...

Pictures of our first concert here, including pictures of the Musikschule Jugenblasorchester, our band of course, and our Musikschule guest conductors:































The next pictures are of a presentation of gifts to our hosts in appreciation for their support of this exchange. Also of note was a special recognition of Mr. Heinz Steidle, the Minister of Sport and Culture for Bietigheim-Bissingen. Mr. Steidle is responsible for starting this exchange in 1985 and has been an incredible supporter of it ever since. We were proud to present him with a photo art piece created by Mr. Marty Voelker, one of our art teachers at North. The piece features the Tivoli Theater at night with the Musikschule and District 99 on the marquee.
















Some images of the amazing cars at the Mercedes Benz Museum today:
















- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

When you Wish Upon a Star.....

On this day, we visited the Neuschwanstein Castle, created by King Ludwig II starting in 1869.  Kind Ludwig II expired under nefarious circumstances, and the castle was never completed.  Located in Bavaria, the castle pays homage to many great German traditions in the art, architecture and furnishings.  This castle was the prototype for Walter Elias Disney as he imagined what Cinderella's castle would look like the in Magic Kingdom.

Learning how to play a march in Heidelberg?

 The District 99 Honors Band prepares for a clinic with Lt. Colonel Beth Steele, US Army.

 Having performed and conducted our national march The Stars and Stripes Forever! nearly 5,000 times in her military career, Lt. Colonel Steele had a voice of authority during the clinic.  Lt. Colonel Steele was a contemporary of both Mr. Teague and Mr. Roselieb from Northwestern University. 

 A soccer pitch made completely from Gummi bears in the window of a shop in Heidelberg.

One of three Heidelberg Castle tour groups stops for a photograph on the balcony of the Heidelberg Castle.

Today, our students learned how to better perform a march.  With years of military band conducting experience, Lt. Colonel Steele was able to convey the things that make a march musical very concisely and quickly to our student musicians.  The transfer of learning that took place during the clinic would become even more apparent during the performances in both the Kronenzentrum and at Lochbrau.

Funny thing happened on the way to the forum......

Today we visited the Flavian Amphitheatre and the Roman Forum. Our students were literally walking the cobblestones were Roman Emperors trod. The impact of the Colosseum is remarkable. Today, the classroom boundaries were not only expanding by thousands of miles, but also by hundreds of years.

 The District 99 Honors Band victoriously enters the Colosseum.

 Students trod the paths where the great Roman gladiators journeyed.

 District 99 Honors Band students travel the pathway that is considered the birthplace of modern democracy.

Our opening days in Rome were spent intimately connected to our guide through these individualized radio receivers.  Guides could be up to 50 feet away, talking softly, and the listener still felt connected to the tour experience.

Mercedes-Benz Museum

Mercedes-Benz Morning

We are off this morning to visit the famed Mercedes-Benz Museum in
Stuttgart. It's fitting, then, that when the buses arrived to pick us
up we were greeted with a coach like none I have ever seen in America.
(At least not on a band trip!)

A few of the amenities I have noticed thus far ...

- Wood grain floors
- Curtains
- Kitchenette
- Booth seating in the rear
- BluRay HD video
- GPS tracking on video screens
- Seats with leather accents and retractable tray tables/cup holders

I think we could (but shouldn't) get used to this!

When in Germany.. you don't need to speak German

Although we visited Neuschwanstein Castle today (and it was beautiful, and just like a fairy tale castle from my favorite Disney movies, and probably one of the most awesome things we've seen on this trip, and especially great because it only rained before and after we were there, and I took so many pictures, and then we took the "shortcut" down the mountain, and basically I loved the whole thing) - that's not what I want to write about.

What I want to write about today is the way I've experienced communication that transcends language. I don't know if this is true for everyone, but my German family loves to talk to me in English - it's like a game to them to try to find the exact words they're looking for. What they don't realize, though, is that that's totally unnecessary. I almost always know what they're trying to say, and even when they're all speaking in German I can guess pretty closely what's going on, mostly from their body language and from some similarities to English amd French. As long as I pay attention, I'm usually not surprised when they finally do turn to me and explain in English what they've been talking about. (They keep asking me if I'm sure I don't speak German.)

It's just amazing to me to see how much alike we - Germans and Americans - really are. My entire German family reminds me so much of my family at home, and even though we don't speak the same language, it's as if we don't need to. Besides the fact that I can usually guess the topic of conversation, there are so many ways that communication can happen without language. Music is, of course, one of the best examples - and that's really why we're here, so we can make the best use of it. As another example, tonight my two German girls watched the Disney movie Tangled with Kyla S. and me, and although it was in English, we all laughed and smiled and (almost) cried in the exact same places. It was a pretty incredible experience to watch that movie with them, realizing that even though they didn't understand, they understood.

So, to end with my usual cliche, when in Rome, do as the Romans, right? Well, in Germany, do as yourself - just let them see you and love you the way you are. That's all I'm trying to do (really all I can do). And even though I don't speak their language, I'm forming bonds that I know will last for a lifetime.

A Day at Neuschwanstein

     Well....today has been a day full of a lot of sleep for all with over seven hours total clocked sitting on a bus to get to and from Neuschwanstein Castle. Thankfully, the bus seats are very comfortable and we had chances to get out and stretch our legs a little bit at an Autobahn rest stop. We arrived at Neuschwanstein castle around midday here in Germany and we had a very long walk up the Bavarian Alps to be able to tour the castle. Let's just say that twenty minutes of hiking up a very large mountain is not the easiest hiking trip I have ever attempted.
     When we finally made it to the top of the mountain, we were allowed to tour six or seven rooms inside of the castle. To say the least, these rooms were breath-taking. The paintings on the walls depicting Norwegian legends and the amount of jewels that were placed into the purple marble pillars, a symbolism of royalty back when the castle was built in the 1800s, and the gigantic chandeliers were beautiful even though they had been replaced by Bohemian blown glass as our tour guide informed us. The sad thing about the castle was that King Ludwig II only lived in the castle for 172 days until he unexpectedly died, so most all of the rooms on the second floor of the castle, the guest bedrooms, were all unfinished, and also other areas of the castle were unfinished because when the king died, construction of the castle was halted. King Ludwig II was told the day before he died that he was mentally insane, the next day he was found dead in a lake in the Alps near the castle, and he was only forty years old when he died.
     The singing room was the last room that we visited in the castle and is one room that is definitely worth mentioning in blog post tonight. The room was absolutely gorgeous, take my word for it because we were not allowed to take pictures anywhere inside of the castle walls, because there were so many amazing paintings on the walls and jewels placed into everything that it was just amazing for lack of a better word. The room had only been completed for three days and then King Ludwig II died so he was not able to sit in the hall that was specifically built for private opera and singing performances for himself. Mrs. Roselieb went up onto the stage and began to sing a little bit of opera so we were able to hear the magnificence of the hall. As musicians ourselves we were able to appreciate the hall a little bit more because of the greatness of the acoustics and everything!
     The last thing that we had the chance to see at the castle was the view of the ravine, the waterfall, and the castle from the bridge higher up in the mountains. A group of students including Brian K., Scott B., Stephanie M., Stephanie M.'s host, and myself hiked up to the bridge and we were greeted by an amazing view of the castle and all of its surroundings. If only my phone would cooperate with me I would post one of the pictures that I took, but alas, technology refuses to agree with me on this trip. I'm glad we had the chance to see this castle, as it was the inspiration for Walt Disney's Cinderella's castle, and the sights that I saw will never leave my mind. A picture is worth a thousand words but seeing it for real instead of on Google Images was absolutely amazing.
    After a long bus ride from Neuschwanstein, we made it back to Bietingheim to spend the night with our host families. Kaitlyn W. and I had a very fun time with our host family playing a German game, translated to English it is called The Game of Pig and has a basis in German history! Kaitlyn and I also taught our host family how to play ERS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_Ratscrew) which was a lot of fun to teach.
     Thank you to my host family, Stephan, Ava, Christina, and Elisabeth Hartwig, for making this trip an absolutely incredible experience for me this far and I cannot believe it is coming to close in just a few days. Thank you to our amazing directors Mr. Teague, Mr. Williams, Mr. Miller, and Mr. Roselieb for making this trip possible for all of us and for a phenomenal concert last night. Finally, thank you to the mayor of Bietingheim-Bissengen, Mr. Heir Kessing, for greeting us yesterday and welcoming us to your beautiful town, the Musikschule band director, Mrs. Sandra Kaltenbrunn, for helping set up this wonderful trip for all of us on this side of the planet and being a wonderful guest conductor on the national anthems last night, and thank you to Reimund Schiffer for the many wonderful years working with our band program in Downers Grove and for guest conducting "Procession of the Nobles" at last night's concert.

Scenes from caste at Neuschwanstein

Some pictures from the picturesque castle we visited today (taken with my new Sony Kamera)

Schloss Neuschwanstein