Three Bromfield School band members are getting the chance of a lifetime this summer when they travel to Europe for the John Philip Sousa Collegiate European Tour.
Daniel Jackson, Seal-Bin Han, and Janet Sorrells, all freshmen, were approached by the Bromfield Music Department leader and tour chairman, Thomas Reynolds. Jackson and Han run a tutoring program for sixth-graders learning the saxophone, so Reynolds contacted them about the tour.
“Of course it was an offer I couldn’t refuse, so I agreed immediately,” says Han.
Sorrells, on the other hand, was contacted because she participated in the tour last year.
Although he has played both piano and alto saxophone since the fourth grade, Han is going to play tenor saxophone on the tour. Meanwhile, Jackson, who primarily plays tenor or baritone saxophone, is going to play bass clarinet on the tour. Sorrells will play the tuba, having switched from the French horn earlier in the school year.
Various students from around the country will be accompanying the three freshmen on the 16-day tour, which begins July 1. After a brief concert at Bromfield starting at 1 p.m., the students will board buses to Logan Airport for their flight overseas. The students will leave for Brussels and, over the following two weeks, travel to cities like Bonn, Salzburg, Milan, and Paris.
“We [will] play 10 concerts in 10 different cities in Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Italy,” Jackson explains.
In addition, they will rehearse in centuries-old castles, stay at world-famous resorts in the Alps, play music in a Swiss recording auditorium, take a cruise on the Rhine, visit the birthplaces of such composers as Mozart and Beethoven, and visit the La Scala Opera House.
The cost of such an adventure, though, is hefty, totaling just under $3,000. Jackson, for his part, is not letting that stop him from playing in the tour. While he is working toward earning the money, he has also received sponsorships from family, friends, and local businesses. It’s worth it, he says, so that he can “[meet] new people, [see] and [go] to new places, [try] new food, and [speak] a lot of French.”
Han, having visited Europe several years ago as a tourist, looks forward to the tour as an opportunity to do more than go sightseeing. “This time I’m really looking forward to [meeting] new people and [learning] to master my instruments!” he says.
Of course, with such a large-scale trip, the students are also nervous. “I’ve never been on a long-distance trip for band,” says Han. “I just got the tenor saxophone and it makes me even more nervous because that’s the instrument that I’m supposed to play for the trip.”
However, Han is confident in his ability to make great music on the trip. The tenor saxophone he is learning compares to the alto saxophone, which he knows, in much the same way that the European tour compares to the students’ musical experience at Bromfield. “It’s not all that different, just bigger!” he says.