Friends, Bands and Foreign Lands
by Cherie Yurco
It may sound like a logistic nightmare to get your community band organized for a trip, let alone a band exchange. But the Advocate Brass Band of Danville, Kentucky, and the Watauga County Community Band of Boone , North Carolina, found it's not nearly as difficult as they had thought and one successful trip wasn't enough.
Bonnie Gordon started playing the cornet when she was in her late 40s and the tuba at age 58. Like many amateur musicians, she plays in a community band. Always a passionate traveler, Gordon naturally began combining her two hobbies by attending band camps and band cruises. On one such cruise, she met a conductor from a New Hampshire community band who challenged her and the group she belonged to, the Watuaga Community Band, to try an overseas band exchange.
The Advocate Brass Band plays host each year to the Great American Brass Band Festival. “One year we decided to have more of an international influence for the festival and I wanted to get a band from Germany," says Dr. George Foreman, former conductor for Advocate Brass Band.
When Foreman started to explore the possibility of recruiting a German band he contacted an old high school bandmate who happened to live in Herforst, in the western part of Germany.
Foreman didn't know it at the time, but his friend already knew of a suitable band for the exchange, as he had joined Herforst's community band, Musikverein Herforst, months earlier. Foreman paid his friend a visit, heard the band perform, and met some people. He thought about giving the entire Advocate Brass Band that same experience and that's when the idea of doing an exchange was born.
From a Crazy Idea
Gordon, a retired biology professor, began her search for an overseas band on the Internet. The Association of Concert Bands (www.acbands.org) helped her to get in touch with overseas bands. She came across a band in Aylesbury, England, and upon having a look at the Aylesbury Community Concert Band's website she saw many similarities to the Watauga Community Band. Aylesbury is a small town, and the band also included people of all ages and had a similar repertoire.
"I asked if they were interested in doing an exchange with us," says Gordon. "I could hear a giant gulp across the Atlantic, and then they said, 'Sure.'"
"We thought it was a crazy idea," said Roger Pethers, 70, a percussionist for the Aylesbury band, "but we were also excited."
Many of the Watauga band's members had never traveled outside the US. Desiring to make the trip as stress-free as possible, Gordon decided to break up the plane ride over the Atlantic by organizing a stopover in Iceland. She contacted the Icelandic Tourist Board who was more than happy to put her in touch with a couple of Iceland's community bands. (There were only four in total.) In the end, the Watauga band organized a performance with bands Svanur Ludrasveit in Reykjavik and Ludrasveit Vestmannaeyjar on Heimaey Island.
Gordon did much of the work of planning for the performances and other events in Iceland and England, and used a travel agent to help with reservations. She did a trial run of the entire trip one year ahead of time with her sister Linda Jackson, 64, a retired music teacher who also plays in the band.
"We preran the trip so I would know how long it would take to get from here to there and where we would need to have buses or could rely on public transportation," says Gordon.
Everything went smoothly when the full band finally made the trip. "The trip to England went so well that I think it was charmed," recalls Gordon of the Watauga Community Band's first overseas trip. "There were lots of things that could have gone wrong, but nothing did."
The Magic of Experience
Most bands find that both sides of the exchange are equally rewarding. Because band exchange is much more than arranging concerts with another band, hosting a band can be as exciting as making the trip. Usually activities such as tours or visits to historic sights are organized.
Interactions with host band members make the trips real cultural experiences. "It was really a bonding experience," says Foreman of the Advocate Brass Band's first overseas exchange. "Most of the people in our band actually stayed with Herforst band members. The players really got acquainted and became friends."
The Advocate Brass Band arrived on the occasion of a regional community band festival, hosted in Herforst on a three-year rotation. "They had a huge tent that holds around 1,000 people, and they had twice that many attend," says Foreman. "The audience was so responsive."
"Sometimes things just click and the communication between the musicians and the audience moves beyond the ordinary and becomes magic," he says. "It happened at that concert. You can ask anyone who played there that night; everyone has that same memory."
"We learned a lot from each other," says Gordon, of the Watauga band's first exchange. "You see that community bands everywhere face the same problems and challenges. We met wonderful people and their parents and children. They entertained us and set up picnics."
"It was a surreal experience," says Carole Pethers, 55, an Aylesbury Band percussionist who arranged for the two bands to play at the historic Waddesdon Manor in Aylesbury, England, and Cutteslowe Park in Oxford. "After they left it was almost like I had been dreaming."
"You meet other people who do what you do and you learn a little bit about their community whether it's a different country, different state, or a different part of your own state," says Vincent DiMartino, 59, cornet soloist and co-director for Advocate Brass Band, of the exchange experience. "Music is one of the easiest ways to make friends."
Although The Aylesbury Band had already met Watauga band members during its trip to Aylesbury, most of the British travelers had never been to the US before. Their part of the exchange fell shortly after 9/11 and they were nervous.
"They often get their information from the television, like we do," said Gordon. "They calmed down quickly as we got away from the big cities and it was great seeing their faces light up when they realized they weren't going to be killed."
Carole Pethers and her husband Roger say that the most rewarding part of the exchange was gaining lifelong friends in another band. The two have stayed in touch with Gordon, and have returned to visit several times, most recently this past summer. They enjoy band practice with the Watauga band whenever they visit.
Balancing the Band
One of the challenges of organizing a band exchange is making sure that there are enough band members who can make the trip to keep the band's sections balanced. This requires firm commitments and sometimes recruitment of outside talent to fill the gaps.
Fortunately for the Advocate Brass Band, Foreman and DiMartino are also professional musicians, and between them, they knew enough musicians to sub for band regulars who could not make the trip. There were about 40 musicians who traveled with the Advocate Band for its trip to Herforst and about a dozen of those were filling in for Advocate regulars.
"The group we took was well-stocked with professional players and ended up being a real good quality group," says Foreman. "We also brought along professional soloists."
The Watauga Community Band's solution is somewhat simpler. Instead of having the traveling band and host band play separate concerts, they learn the same music and play side by side at performance time.
"Before the trips we send music back and forth," says Gordon. "The host band arranges to have the larger instruments. I just bring my mouthpiece in my pocket and tell them ahead of time what type of tuba I have."
The combined band had plenty of percussionists so Carole and Roger Pethers had some downtime to actually come around front and listen for themselves. "The sound of the band was amazing," says Carole. "It was incredibly rich with about 70 people in all."
It may seem unlikely that a typical community band could afford such a trip, but most band exchange trips are paid for by individual band members, saving up as they would for any vacation. In fact, band members often bring their spouses and other family members along.
"Money is always an issue," says the Advocate Brass Band's DiMartino. "For band members as well as the band itself. We usually know we are going on a trip two or three years ahead of time and people save the money."future exchangers.
Foreman's advice for bands that would like to try an exchange is: "Just do it!" He does, however, caution that the planning side is crucial and for those unaccustomed to touring, it is advisable to hire a company specializing in band tours.
"They take care of everything: travel, booking the flights, arranging the buses to take you and your equipment around," says Foreman. "They will even arrange for your concert sites if you want."
Another word of advice would be to make sure you are dealing with reputable organizers on both ends of the trip, and to confirm and reconfirm any scheduled exchange, and make sure you speak directly with the bands involved.
The Advocate Brass Band's first band exchange was so successful that it organized a European tour a few years later, performing in several countries, and ending the trip with a visit to their friends in Herforst.
The Watauga County Community Band has since organized six exchanges with bands closer to home and Gordon hopes to do another overseas band exchange in the next few years.
"Band exchange is a musical party with friends you haven't met yet," she adds. "There's a lot of planning and adrenaline rushes but I'd do it again in a New York minute."
--Cherie Yurco is currently learning to play the cello vicariously through her eight-year-old son.
Band Exchange Links
Advocate Brass Band: www.gabbf.com
Aylesbury Community Concert Band: www.accb.fsnet.co.uk
Association of Concert Bands: www.acbands.org
Watauga County Community Band: www.wataugaband.org
