Story and Photos by ESTHER K. SMITH
News staff writer
April 27, 2007

Seventy-seven exhausted people returned to Hood River late at night on Saturday, March 31, jet-lagged but full of unforgettable experiences in England and Scotland during spring break.

The 61 members of the Hood River Valley High School Chamber Singers and Wind Ensemble got an education of a lifetime in one short week.

"I want to teach not only the notes, but the history of the music, the culture out of which it came, the people that it was intended for, and the environment for which it was written," music teacher and director Mark Steighner said. "Ten minutes singing a piece of music in Durham Cathedral accomplishes what hours of lecture or disembodied research only hints at.

"To perform in those spaces, to see the colors and smell the smells, to touch the stones and the columns, to look up at the vaulted ceilings — it makes the music a living thing," he said.

It is the fourth — and largest — tour Steighner has organized in the last 10 years.

The basic itinerary took the group from Portland to San Francisco to London to Cambridge to Lincoln to Durham, before entering Scotland and finishing up the trip with Edinburgh and Glasgow. Whew!

At every stop the Chamber Singers had at least one performance; often including the Wind Ensemble. The tour group stayed in a different hotel nearly every night. Two luxury tour buses (or motor coaches, as they are known in England) became a daily habitat.

Booking nearly 80 people together on flights and in hotels is difficult enough, but factor in the time period — spring break — and you have a real challenge. One of the results was an 8-hour layover in San Francisco on the first day, which gave the group a chance to spend a few hours in Fisherman’s Wharf.

That day had started at 2:30 a.m. in front of the high school and ended 31 hours later when the group finally got to check into its hotel in London — after first touring Windsor Castle. And that kind of pace continued throughout the trip: Early morning wake-up calls, room checks, baggage carrying, bus riding, passport checks, late-night room checks, and lots of walking, performing and touring — and very little sleeping.

Steighner has the organization of these tours down to a science, with the help of Tom Schaefer and Nancy Merz, who have both been on nearly every trip. Planning was done months in advance. The 61 students were divided into 10 groups, or clans, and each was headed by one of the 13 other adult chaperones, with a few unassigned to operate as "floaters."

Chaperones were in charge of always knowing the whereabouts of their clan members and making sure they had their passports, music and concert attire when needed. They did room sweeps in the morning before checkout from the hotel, and checks at the end of the day, before lights-out.

For the most part, things went smoothly, with one major exception: Kaleb Apland’s cello disappeared somewhere between Portland and London, and it was days before the airlines located it and got it back to him — and even then it was unusable, from some damage it sustained. He managed to play in a couple of the performances with loaners and rentals, but missed his own instrument.

Before one scheduled performance, the music groups were left waiting outside for nearly 45 minutes, and passed the time by impromptu singing. One passer-by said that it was his birthday, and that the group had made his day — and said he was going straight home to get his family to come to the concert.

Steighner was told by the Cambridge Lions Club (who arranged that performance and one the next day) that "I also have to place on record the delight felt by everyone who attended the concert at the superb performance given by the students. The fellowship which followed when the concert had concluded, and before they returned to their hotel, was a great experience. Everyone on the tour group was a great ambassador, and it was a pity the time spent together was so short."

At a small village called Barnack, the students performed for a Sunday service at an 11^th-16^th century church, where bell-ringers demonstrated the peals of centuries-old bells. Church members provided a hot meal following the service.

In Lincoln, the music groups performed in two venues: The Theatre Royal and the Lincoln Cathedral. The latter concert was one of the tour’s highlights for Steighner. As he wrote in an e-mail to parents at home on the third day of the trip:

"Today, the kids had a chance to explore the city of Lincoln and our visit concluded with a performance in the Lincoln Cathedral, the very spot where, in 1623, composer William Byrd (and on this very day!) was appointed organist," he said. "Many of the kids were moved to tears by the experience of performing in that most impressive space."

Everywhere the groups played, the audience reaction was the same: The concerts took their breath away and they were very grateful for the experience. Some were moved to tears.

"We made so many people cry," said Claire Smith, one of the Chamber Singers, after a performance at a church in Durham at which Steighner had honored couples who had been married 25 years or longer. "I was watching the ones who had stood up for being married 25 years, and after ‘John Anderson’ they were just in tears."

In Edinburgh, Scotland, at St. Giles Cathedral, one elderly woman said she had especially enjoyed the performance of "Locus Iste" (by Anton Bruckner), because it had been sung at her wedding. "When they started singing it, I got chills," she said.

Steighner said that every tour has its share of triumphs and inconveniences, not surprising when you take that many students and adults and create complex itineraries.

"The vast majority of the kids were cooperative, kind, flexible, mature, and intent on doing a good job," he said. "What I want students to come away with is a sense of connection to a tradition that has existed for over a thousand years and will continue through them and their efforts."

n