Nine Marshall music students explore Europe
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MARSHALL -- For part of their summer vacation, a group of Marshall High School students got to perform at 11 places in five European countries, explore where Mozart lived, visit the Louvre and see the mountains of Switzerland.
In July, the nine music students -- Nathan Larsen, Ethan Shuckhart, Natalie Shuckhart, Alex Sturrock, Drew Dunn, Ian Bayer, Liam Bayer, Kamoren Bomgaars and Alex Petersen -- did a 16-day tour of Europe as part of the Ambassadors of Music program.
Laura Peterson, MHS choir director, said the Ambassadors of Music program has been around for more than 20 years, and she and Larry Petersen, the MHS band director, were familiar with it from other states.
"South Dakota participates in the Ambassadors music program, and so I heard heard of it, and then their current director, Jim Baxter, had reached out to Larry after an honor band and said 'hey, can I come to Marshall to pitch the idea of this Music Ambassadors? Can I come and present the trip?' So we were a host point for people who were in southwest Minnesota."
Two years ago, the Petersens and Alex Petersen went on an Ambassadors of Music program trip. This year, the opportunity arose again.
"We nominated a bunch of students, and then those who were kind of interested," Laura Petersen said. "So we as directors, kind of can make sure that people we nominate or people would feel comfortable taking on a trip that long, and then those that were interested came to the meeting and then they wanted to go."
"And there's a performance opportunity in each country, so they tour and visit five countries, but they also perform in those five countries too," Laura Petersen added.
The students had 11 performances during the 16 days in Europe. The five countries were England, France, Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
Natalie Shuckhart said she and her brother, Ethan, discussed the trip with their family.
"We talked about it with our parents, and they were like 'well, why not make it a family thing?' and that'll be like our trip for the year," Natalie Shuckhart said.
But before heading to Europe, the students had to do two-and-a-half days of intensive rehearsals at St. Ben's.
"It was pretty much two days straight of playing," Ethan Shuckhart said.
"You would spend several hours practicing in large chunks, you'd get about a 15-minute break, and then it was right back into it," Larsen said. "And then there was for people who were doing both band and choir, you would go band one half, choir the next one, band, and then it rotated every time. And it was especially hard for people who did both, because you only get half the rehearsal time for each of them, and you still have to be as good as the people who just practiced eight hours yesterday on the music."
"And those rehearsals, they were like 8-8, eight in the morning to eight at night, it's super intense," Laura Petersen said.
After the rehearsals at St. Ben's, the students then traveled to Europe, where they performed in various venues. All nine were part of the band, while some of them performed with both band and choir.
Besides the performances, the students also got to visit several notable spots in Europe.
"You see all the quintessential tourist things, Big Ben and the Eye, the Tower Bridge and the Tower of London. You see the Crown Jewels," Laura Peterson said. "We went to Westminster Abbey, which was incredible. We went to a church there. They had what's called an evening song service."
The group also saw the sights of Paris, such as the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre.
"I think of the touristy things we did, the Louvre was probably my favorite part," Larsen said.
"It's pretty cool to say you've been there and you've seen it," Laura Petersen said.
Then there were other sites that were "neat to experience," Larry Petersen said.
"You know, being up in the mountains at a ski lodge in Switzerland, seeing the high and size of the mountains," he said.
They also got to see the Matterhorn, Laura Petersen said.
"It's a fairly famous mountain peak, and you could say 'I was there,'" she said.
Natalie Shuckhart said the student choir sang at St. Peter's Basilica in Salzburg.
"Yep, that was incredible," Ethan Shuckhart said. "For one it has like I think it was a seven-second reverb. The sound quality was amazing in there."
In Salzburg, you kind of "walk the streets Mozart walked," Laura Petersen said.
"And we performed in the church that he performed in and worked in," she said.
When the students performed in Switzerland, a lot of the locals came to watch, Larsen said.
"And toward the end of our performance, they start doing this clap and chant thing called the Swiss clap, from what I was told, and it was really fun," Larsen said. "And especially, I don't know who he was, but the guy that sat at the back and hollered at the top of his lungs after every song was fantastic."
Laura Petersen said they mostly performed American songs at the venues.
"The thing that gets crowds most excited, almost every country all the time is when you guys do 'Stars and Stripes,'" Laura Petersen said. "The club concert was Stars and Stripes (Forever) and the European crowds love it."
In Switzerland, there was a polka party event the students did in the evening, Natalie Shuckhart said.
"Where there was fondue, and then after that, they had a bunch of polka dancers and you could join in," she said.
Ethan Shuckhart said the group saw the Panthéon in Paris, which was "very impressive."
"And it's really interesting to see the tombs where all these very famous people were buried," he said. Natalie Shuckhart noted that a couple of tombs they saw were of Victor Hugo, author of "Les Misérables," and Marie Curie.
Larsen said his favorite place on the trip was Rodenberg, Germany.
"Because it's an old town, and it's been there for probably at least several centuries, and it just looks like it's been frozen in time," he said. "It's amazing. And they have walls all around the city, and you can actually go up in the walls, and there's a bunch of museumy stuff in there, which genuinely makes it a lot cooler to explore."
Larsen said he got a full metal sword in Rodenberg that he had shipped back.
"It now sits in my basement and looks really cool," he said.
One of the highlights for Laura Petersen is the food, she said.
"The food is so amazing," she said. "Like everything you eat is like the best thing I've ever had. And then you go to a different restaurant or try something, and they hand you something new, and you're like 'this is incredible.'"
Larsen recalled the time he stayed at a different hotel than the other Marshall kids.
"I was the only Marshall kid there. So at dinner, I was kind of forced to go talk to some people," Larsen said. "There's only two guys that were really passionate about a bunch of stuff I was really passionate about, so that was really fun."
Larsen said he'd encourage other music students to go on the European tour.
"I would say that if you're able to go on the trip, you should definitely go on the trip because it was really interesting to see how similar, and also at the same time, how different we are from everywhere else, because there were a lot of things that I was really surprised were almost as similar as the U.S. but then there were other things that was was just kind of blown away by how different they were," Larsen said.