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Emma Kent Director of Music at West Buckland School in Devon took her choir, concert and jazz band on tour to the Rhineland this year.
She says her school music tours have an incredible impact on the musical proficiency and quality of her students’ playing, but it is socially where the tour is invaluable:
“The joy of this particular trip is the diversity of the clientele. There is no other school trip that is so inclusive of age and diverse in appeal.
“The soft skills that pupils and staff gain from it are huge and not to be underestimated: confidence building, negotiation, team-work, character development, independence, resilience, relationship building, tolerance and good old fashioned humour.
“Preparing for a tour is a great way to galvanise and focus attention. At school students are pulled in lots of different directions, but to have 4 or 5 days where you can really focus on the music-making not only brings astronomical improvements in their playing and performance levels, but gives young people that inner quiet confidence that they can succeed.
“The Rhineland was magical; beautiful scenery and everyone was very friendly. Every venue we went to rolled out the red carpet for us and was very welcoming. We saw lots of wonderful sights including Cochem Castle where we had an excellent and very charismatic English-speaking tour guide and Port Nigra in Trier. We also took the students to an Aqua park where they could let off steam!”
“We had a very experienced tour manager, Karin. I felt I was in very safe hands. She allowed me to concentrate on the music, which was perfect!”
Read Emma’s music tour diary:
The Germany music tour represents the school’s ninth (!) band camp, and the second one abroad. Thirty-three pupils, five staff, two staff children and one baby bump boarded the luxury coach, manned by the ever-friendly Alan and Roger, bleary eyed at 12:00am and duly started the epic 30-hour expedition to the Cochem in the Rhineland. Pupils from all seven year groups (Y7-13) combined to be able to offer: Concert Choir, Concert Band, String Ensemble and WB Dixie (an elite ensemble for our Grade 7/8 pupils to stretch their legs).
Day One The youth hostel was outstanding. It was also ideally situated on the river Moselle and our first evening was spent walking the short distance into town in 30 degree heat to admire the medieval architecture. This was followed by an ice-breaking quiz with mixed year-group teams.
Day two saw us exploring the ‘Porta Nigra’ in Trier, the largest Roman city gate north of the Alps. Some free time shopping was followed by our first concert in Bad Bertrich where we received a very warm welcome (and a memorial picture and money!). Then we enjoyed an evening swim in the local pool. The wave machine went down a storm!
Day three We walked, in stifling heat, up the steep hill to Cochem Castle, but it was worth it to have the guided tour with Michelle who really brought historic German life to life. Next to Boppard for a chairlift adventure and finally to our second concert at Bad Muenster Spa. Here an idyllic bandstand, surrounded by trees and a larger audience greeted us.
Day four and it was time to hit the bottle! Namely at the Carl Emery winery. The pupils all got to sample his wears in the form of grape juice and it was a surprisingly informative and educational morning. Next was a river cruise up the Rhine and then some free time shopping. Later that evening we played at Kurgastzentrum Bernkastel-Kues where we had our best audience yet. More than 80 people turned out to cheer us on.
Day five was mainly returning to England on a coach, which involved some great videos and some singing and games. We did treat the train compartment to an a capella version of ‘Flashlight’ from ‘Pitch Perfect 2’ which was pretty pitch perfect - well done guys!
Find out more about our school music tours to the Rhineland or see all our school music trip destinations.
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