this appeared in the school newsletter which is a nice summary of esther’s trip:
Music Tour of Europe a Resounding Success
The Westlake Girls & Boys High Schools Music Departments have just returned from an extremely successful three week tour of Europe taking a Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra, Concert Band, Big Band and Choralation Choir. The tour started with a two day stop-over in Singapore which included visiting the Night Safari and Universal Studios. Choralation Choir performed to an appreciative crowd in the Paragon Mall. The instrumental groups were unable to perform in Singapore as their instruments were held in transit awaiting the second leg of the trip to Europe.
The group spent two days in Munich enjoying walking tours of the old city, shopping and rehearsing, culminating in the first full concert of the tour in Garching, a small town 30 minutes north of Munich. The concert was shared with the local Blasorchester Garching – in full Bavarian attire!
The following two days were spent in the stunning Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Mozart. The group enjoyed walking through the cobbled streets and viewing the 16th century buildings, reliving the life of Mozart and tracing the sights where the Sound of Music was filmed. Choralation gave an impromptu performance in a Baroque church at St Michael’s in Mondsee, a church full of amazing paintings and artefacts. The second day in Salzburg was spent in the lovely picturesque lake village of St Gilgen. It was great to see Westlake parents and families turn up to this outdoor concert along with a large local crowd.
The trip to Vienna started with a short visit to the salt mine at Hallein, Bad Dürrnberg which included two hilarious and somewhat adventurous underground slides with steep drops. This was an amazing facility, which the students really enjoyed. At one point the group walked across the border from Austria into Germany and back again – but more than 200m inside the mountain!
The following week in Vienna was the central focus of the tour. Four of the Westlake groups were competing in the Summa Cum Laude Youth Festival, the largest Youth Music Festival in Europe. Thirty five ensembles from sixteen countries took part in the competition. Approximately 1500 musicians competed for prizes and Westlake had entered four of the five categories. It was an intensive week of recitals in the world famous Musikverein, followed by workshops and concerts throughout Vienna and surrounding towns. The Westlake ensembles went into the competition with very realistic expectations, and were competing against provincial ensembles including musicians aged up to 25. During this competition Westlake was very proud to include the music of eight New Zealand composers in their competition recitals.
It was great to see Principal Roz Mexted in Vienna to support the groups. The competition results were beyond all our expectations. The Symphony Orchestra, Concert Band and Choir all achieved 1st placings in their respective categories and the Chamber Orchestra gained 3rd place, making Westlake Girls & Boys High Schools the most successful school/organisation in the nine year history of the competition. The three ensembles that gained first place were invited to perform in the prestigious Gala Concert for the festival held to a sold out Vienna Konzerthaus. Following this concert, all were able to relax and enjoy their successes in a function held at Hofburg Palace.
From here the tour moved to Hungary and went straight to the castle district on the Buda side of the Danube. The view of Budapest from the parapets of the castle was absolutely stunning – one of the best in Europe. Westlake were hosted by the Hungarian Government and visited three cities in Hungary.
The first city Budapest was a city of contrasting history, something the students gained a greater understanding of on the hour long boat cruise on the Danube which featured everything from the palaces of Hungarian kings, to Baroque churches, to Classical period hotels, to bleak communist-era buildings, and then 21st century theatres, all visible from the river. A tour of the Opera House and Liszt Academy, one of the most important independent tertiary music education institutions in the world, was a highlight for many of the students.
The Hungarian government spared no cost in setting up huge outdoor stages complete with full lighting rig and PA system for each of the concerts in Hungary. The audience in Budapest were very appreciative of all the Westlake groups, and the hosts from the Hungarian government were delighted with the performances, especially with the Hungarian song ‘Túrót eszik a cigány’ and the Hungarian national anthem. Westlake acknowledged the wonderful sponsorship from the Hungarian government by presenting them with a Maori greenstone adze, wooden carving and bone necklaces.
Debrecen was the second city visited in Hungary, which was smaller than Budapest but filled with yet more amazing architecture. The students enjoyed a few hours at a huge indoor water park complex which was followed by the second Hungarian concert. John Alden Stanley, one of the Summa Cum Laude adjudicators from the USA, happened to be at the concert and enjoyed watching Westlake present the ‘complete package’. During the NZ and Hungarian anthems at the end of the concert, there were several people in the audience moved to tears. The power of music to bring people together and build bridges between cultures was demonstrated many times on this tour.
As the group travelled to the final city Pécs they visited a national park and local farming area called Hortobágy where they enjoyed a traditional Hungarian outdoor meal of bread and goulash cooked in a huge pot over a portable gas fire. The group enjoyed a bus and walking tour of this lovely city, including exploring the 2000 year old underground Roman cemetery beneath St Peter’s Basilica. Once again there was a full stage set up for the final concert, right in front of the church that has both a cross and a crescent (it was a Catholic church before the Turkish invasion, when all the Catholic churches were turned into mosques), and right in the centre of town. The concert audience was probably the largest of the tour with several hundred joining in the anthem at the end of the concert.
Filharmonia Hungary (the company that organised the Hungary portion of the tour) was thrilled with the audience response as well as with Westlake’s performance. The guide told the students how much she had enjoyed their performances, their openness to learning about new cultures, their discipline and musicianship, and their kindness to one another. At the end of the tour, this was a good endorsement of how it had touched ordinary people in Hungary who enjoyed interacting with a bunch of Kiwi teenagers, and how the variety of their concerts kept them entertained.
The three country coach trip from Hungary via Austria to Germany took 12 hours and was the final stage of the Europe tour before the long haul flight back to New Zealand. It was an extremely educational experience for everyone on the tour, made all the more worthwhile by the outstanding achievements of the performers.
Then seemed ok later. time for a replacement i think
