{"id":33954,"date":"2023-03-17T09:11:00","date_gmt":"2023-03-17T15:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/suzukiassociation.org\/?post_type=journalarticle&p=33954"},"modified":"2024-06-18T10:48:09","modified_gmt":"2024-06-18T16:48:09","slug":"boulder-suzuki-strings-tour-a-student-report","status":"publish","type":"journalarticle","link":"https:\/\/suzukiassociation.org\/fr\/journalarticle\/boulder-suzuki-strings-tour-a-student-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Tourn\u00e9e Boulder Suzuki Strings : Rapport d'un \u00e9l\u00e8ve"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Hannah Cohen and Adam Transue<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 2010, Boulder Suzuki Strings, a school for violin, viola, and cello students that live throughout the front range in Colorado, has conducted a tour for its advanced high school students. In the past, the group would spend over six months working on a full show that included not only playing instruments, but also singing and choreography, and then spend their spring break in Costa Rica, playing across language and cultural barriers. In 2020, the tour had to be canceled at the last minute due to the pandemic, leaving students understandably distraught. Because of this, for the March 2022 tour, the lovely teachers\u2014Amy Gesmer-Packman, Flori Muller, and Stacey Brady\u2014made sure to tread carefully. First, they announced a trip to Puerto Rico (assuming that domestic travel would be a safer bet given the uncertainty of Covid), and then, when January brought the Omicron variant and skyrocketing cases, they pivoted once again and tirelessly worked to create a road trip of the western United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We began rehearsals in August 2021, even as the newest wave of the pandemic made the idea of actual travel seem somewhat improbable. During the first semester, we focused on learning the ten pieces. We explored how the different parts fit together and learned a lot of notes. All of the students were busy, with many balancing orchestra music and solo repertoire. To be honest, rehearsals felt a little uncomfortable. Given the jumbled past several years, we found that playing together in person was a skill we had to relearn. Playing with kids we hadn\u2019t seen in person in a long time felt scrambled and overwhelming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The music was challenging more on an ensemble level rather than an individual technical level. Many of our tour pieces were brilliantly arranged by composer Sean Brady and had interlocking harmonies and melodies that passed from part to part. When one particular rehearsal broke down because of our collective inability to hear between the different parts, our teachers had us stand in a circle and try to simply play our part with the people next to us. We were shocked to learn that even this was a challenge for us! Still, the exercise cemented listening as the issue to focus on. We reflected that this was how we learned to play our instruments in a group setting in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We spent the hurried time between January and late March memorizing music, stumbling through choreography, and then re-memorizing everything we had forgotten. As we continued to prepare our music, parents and teachers found sponsors, planned performance attire, and organized the ever-important snack supply. Finally\u2014and perhaps, a little abruptly\u2014we played our first two local concerts, packed up a large tour bus, and headed out to the American Southwest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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[img=https:\/\/lh4.googleusercontent.com\/1AckKR9FoW7IDtnIGJhWmSDq0ubcM4pZlrSq4lDVNS_WpHxUMHRLKHd4YCNE-GBpVUyROx8STA0Qc_xfXpxQyJw765pq7PvD97NLVZrbqii0NnAjGi1wBE8KIRgerrp5WqRAMvOB1OxW]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boulder Suzuki Strings, 2022 tour members. Photo by Karen Pring<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Colorado, we drove to New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Nevada, playing six concerts in nine days. We got the opportunity to perform for and with a few schools, including a performing arts high school, a public elementary school with a Suzuki program and a stand-alone Suzuki program. We loved meeting, interacting, and playing with and for students that we had never met before! Our teachers arranged for the students in the elementary school to join us for Twinkle at the end of our performance\u2014that experience was one of the highlights of the tour. It meant a great deal to us to play with these young students whom we had never met before and realize that we were inspiring them to continue their instrumental studies. A similar feeling occurred when we played a joint concert with the standalone Suzuki program. In this concert, we added some extra pieces from throughout the Suzuki literature so that we could all play together. We were amazed at how little rehearsal we all needed to perform together despite studying in completely different states with different teachers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We also performed in two outdoor venues: The Railyard in Albuquerque and at a Colorado Rockies spring training baseball game. Watching spontaneous crowds gather in these outdoor venues to hear our program was unbelievably rewarding. Our final concert in Grand Junction was arranged as a fundraiser for the victims of recent wildfires that had just taken place in our community. We were shocked and excited to have raised over $2000 to directly benefit the students in our program that lost everything\u2014their houses and instruments\u2014in the Marshall Fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This tour involved a lot of travel time spent on the bus, which contrary to several parents\u2019 fears, was not excessive or overly boring. We taught each other cat’s cradle tricks (to various levels of success), shared music, napped, and played copious amounts of cards. Playing our instruments together built camaraderie, but having all this free time\u2014the bus, but also hotel rooms and dinner tables and pool decks\u2014made us more of an ensemble than simply a group of musicians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our days were filled with plenty of activities alongside our concerts. The teachers graciously allowed time for visits to the San Diego Zoo, a Rockies\u2019 spring training baseball game, ocean sunsets, a tour of the Georgia O\u2019Keeffe Museum, ocean kayak adventures, and a whale\/dolphin watching tour. Meanwhile, as the tour went on, our performances improved (and sped up!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tour wasn\u2019t what we were originally expecting. Still, while apologizing for the clich\u00e9, the seniors who had also gone on the Boulder Susuki Strings 2018 tour to Costa Rica said that what made the experience fantastic was the people, not the place. Despite the turmoil of the previous few years, this whole process\u2014from weekly rehearsals to day-long choreography rehearsals to sunburns on the beach\u2014proved to us that music is more powerful than what many of us had witnessed before. Those of us who are eligible are already excited to go on the next tour, wherever it will be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Par Hannah Cohen et Adam Transue Depuis 2010, Boulder Suzuki Strings, une \u00e9cole pour les \u00e9tudiants en violon, alto et violoncelle qui vivent dans la r\u00e9gion du Colorado, organise une tourn\u00e9e pour ses \u00e9tudiants avanc\u00e9s du secondaire. Par le pass\u00e9, le groupe passait plus de six mois \u00e0 travailler sur un...<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":34772,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":true,"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"pmpro_default_level":"0","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":""},"article-tag":[777,828,789],"journalsection":[],"class_list":["post-33954","journalarticle","type-journalarticle","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","article-tag-student","article-tag-student-perspectives","article-tag-tours","pmpro-has-access"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"article-tag":[{"value":777,"label":"Student"},{"value":828,"label":"Student Perspectives"},{"value":789,"label":"Suzuki Tours"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/suzukiassociation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Untitled-8-1024x533-1.jpg",1024,533,false],"author_info":[],"comment_info":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/suzukiassociation.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/journalarticle\/33954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/suzukiassociation.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/journalarticle"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/suzukiassociation.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/journalarticle"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/suzukiassociation.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/suzukiassociation.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"article-tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/suzukiassociation.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article-tag?post=33954"},{"taxonomy":"journalsection","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/suzukiassociation.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/journalsection?post=33954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}