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The cellists and bassists playing together at the joint rehearsal

(© McLean High School Orchestra)

Friday, 29 January

Today we arrived to a warm Detmold welcome as snow fell on the Grabbe Gymnasium (GG), where the German student hosts quickly found their McLean friends.  Old friends greeted each other with hugs and new friends quickly got acquainted. The principal of Grabbe Gymnasium was on hand to greet us, together with orchestra director Herr Monks and several of the teachers. After a few short hours at home with their host families, the students returned to the auditorium at Grabbe Gymnasium for their first rehearsal together. It was very impressive to see that once again, students from two different orchestras, continents and cultures quickly formed an effective ensemble. They settled down right away to serious rehearsing. 

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The snow-covered landscape in Detmold, Germany

(© McLean High School Orchestra)

Saturday, 30 January

After enjoying time to relax and get to know their host families, the Chamber Soloists and their German colleagues were back at Grabbe Gymnasium for their second rehearsal on Saturday afternoon. There was no time to think about jet lag. The U.S. and German musicians are demonstrating the hard work and discipline that make their partnership famous here in Detmold. 

Some of the students in our group were able to sleep late on Saturday and Sunday and began to recover their usual high energy level. Over the weekend, quite of a few of them were out and about with their host families to see the sights of Detmold and the nearby Teutoburger Forest. 

The weather here in Detmold is chilly. It snowed during the bus ride from Amsterdam to Detmold and the snow continued, on and off, for the weekend. Cold weather at night brought slippery conditions to the streets of Detmold, so we have to proceed cautiously around town. Our hosts insist the wintry weather is not typical for this part of Germany. The snowy conditions bring a picture-book quality to the traditional street scenes and mountain landscapes in the nearby Teutoburger Forest.   

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The nighttime walking tour, led by a musical guide, focused on the Detmold's medieval history.

(© McLean High School Orchestra)

Sunday, 31 January

On Sunday evening, we went straight from the long afternoon rehearsal to our first group activity as tourists. Our hosts arranged for a tour of the older sections of Detmold by night, led by a musician dressed as a medieval bard.  It was very cold and we bundled up in extra socks, boots, long underwear, gloves, hats, scarves and warm coats. Our tour guide explained a bit of Detmold’s early history, played the guitar and flute, and sang (irreverent) songs. Herr Monks helped to translate. Our guide described the way of life in Detmold in the Middle Ages as we walked through streets lined with houses dating to the 15th and 16th centuries. The timber and stucco style of architecture is very charming. We had a short preview of several sites we will visit again, including the castle in the center of town. Detmold was a princely state ruled by the local nobility until 1918. It remains the administrative seat of the Lippe area and the current prince still lives in the castle, although he is no longer the head of the local government.

After the medieval tour, a group of German and U.S. students went to a local restaurant to eat and to enjoy each other’s company. Speaking of food, all of the student musicians are working hard at rehearsals, so they need to refuel on a regular basis. Fortunately, the Grabbe Gymnasium is located within walking distance to the bakeries and shops, so the students often walk several blocks to find extra snacks during the breaks.

All of us are enjoying the generous hospitality of our German host families, who are sparing no effort to take care of us and show us the high points of Detmold. It is a charming town and a cultural center with a long musical tradition.  

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The combined orchestra relaxing between rehearsals

(© McLean High School Orchestra)

Monday, 1 February

The U.S. contingent was joined on February 1 by Philip Rosenfelt, Deputy General Counsel for Program Service at the Department of Education, who traveled to Germany to be with us during the exchange week. He is a former McLean High School Orchestra parent, who was instrumental in creating the exchange program.

We asked the Chamber Soloists to share their observations, and tell us what they liked about Detmold so far. 

Abby:  We will learn about a different culture but the whole point, and what we always come back to, is the music.  Music has a universal language and we all understand it and come together to play it, even though we don’t always understand each other.

Andrew and Chloe:  Visiting the large statue of Hermann the German.  

Jeff :  My host family was so friendly and showed me around the whole town.  It was very interesting to see new places.

Sarah K:  I enjoyed hanging out with our German friends at dinner in the center of town on Sunday night.

Johannah:  I like the pretty old buildings built with wood and I love the food (bread and cheese and milk).

Damian:  The lack of sunshine in Detmold.

Arman:  The first dinner with German friends when we went out to eat and got to meet new friends. 

Tom:  I enjoy seeing graffiti (new and old).

Ali, Meryem and Brian:  We loved the bowling, eating schnitzel and going out for dinner in a group. 

After the McLean High School Chamber Soloists practiced all day with their German friends from Grabbe Gymnasium, their reward was a field trip in the early evening to visit the Burg Sternberg, a fortified castle located some distance away from Detmold. The castle looked beautiful as we approached, surrounded by a deeper snow than we had seen in Detmold. We entered through a traditional kitchen with an enormous fireplace where a smoky fire was burning. Our guide, the father of one of the Detmold students, explained the entire castle would have been filled with smoke from wood fires, hundreds of years ago. After a short summary of the castle’s history through the year 1400, he led us to the museum of antique instruments. The students were invited to try out the harpsichord and the stringed and percussion instruments. 

The castle is a center for the restoration and repair of period instruments, and for performances featuring the antique instruments.  Craftsmen also create new replicas of old instruments. Recent renovations at the castle have artfully blended tradition and modernity.  We were fortunate to be the guests of honor at a private concert organized especially for our group in one of the renovated performance spaces. A small ensemble performed Italian songs and selections by Erik Satie and a German folk-style singer. They performed on the flute, percussion instruments, antique guitar and other period instruments.  The lively tarantella music inspired several students to get up and dance. 

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The Hochschule für Musik Detmold greatly impressed the students.

(© McLean High School Orchestra)

Wednesday, February 3

We met very early at Grabbe Gymnasium and walked through the snow to the Hochschule fur Musik, a renowned music conservatory (university level) in Detmold. We were expecting to see the classrooms and practice facilities in the main school building. It formerly was the summer palace of the princes of Lippe, complete with a large park where the court musicians once performed outdoor concerts for the prince and his family, who could travel there in boats via a canal that links the buildings. 

First of all though, the MHS students were invited, for the first time ever, to a tour and demonstration at the new concert hall, a separate modern building where the Hochschule students and visiting artists perform.  We had a unique and new experience that combined the technical excellence of German engineering with the deep musical traditions of Detmold. The state-of-the-art auditorium with specially-engineered acoustics is brand new after an extensive 2009 renovation. The head Tonmeister explained the innovative high-tech systems in place (and under development) in the new facility. In the concert hall, extra speakers are embedded in the walls and ceilings. They play back the sound at different levels of reverberation through wave field synthesis, creating four choices of concert hall acoustics for performers. The technology also allows musicians to hear how their instruments sound from different points in the concert hall. The system relies on a large bank of computers to operate the system and calibrate the sound to play it back with accurate, non-distorted quality through the loudspeakers. The technology has its origins in a theory (Huygens-Prinzip) put forward in the year 1678 but never proven, as the technology did not exist to demonstrate it until the 21st century. The students were fascinated by the cutting-edge engineering and technology. Tom was invited to play the organ to demonstrate the different levels of enhanced reverberations for the group. We also learned about new experiments and technology to take “surround sound” to a higher level of quality for movies and, perhaps some day, for high quality listening at home. There is no word in English yet that equates to Tonmeister, and it is a new field of study at the Hochschule. Several of the Chamber Soloists were intrigued enough to ask about application procedures for the program.

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The students were given a private tour of the Detmold Castle.

(© McLean High School Orchestra)

The next highlight of our day was a guided tour of the Detmold Castle, the residence of the noble rulers of the Lippe region for hundreds of years. It was a great honor, and a surprise, to learn that our tour guide was the Prince of Lippe himself! His father and mother still live in the castle, and he lives in the town with his family. We climbed a circular stone staircase decorated with carved stone and the heads of hunting trophies. Then, we assembled in a room with red silk wall coverings where the prince spoke to us about his family history and pointed out portraits of his ancestors, including his grandparents. He showed us a number of the family treasures, including a set of Meissen china painted by the French artist Watteau. In each room of the castle, the prince explained the highlights of the decoration and furnishings, noting the historical significance of certain objects and tapestries. A large wood-paneled music room featured painted portraits of the prince’s ancestors. The composer Johannes Brahms lived in Detmold in his twenties and served as a court composer and music teacher to the princes and princesses in the castle. The students were very impressed to see a small piano that Brahms played during that period. We enjoyed seeing many examples of museum-quality Empire furniture and Export porcelain in the castle.

After free time to explore the town and enjoy traditional Detmold snacks and hot chocolate, the students returned to GG for a four-hour rehearsal. They finished up the day with an early supper at a traditional German restaurant. At the restaurant, they played a lot of games and had a lot of fun then went home with their hosts in preparation for tomorrow’s concert.

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The Chamber Soloists

(© McLean High School Orchestra)

Thursday, February 4

Today, the McLean Chamber Soloists were scheduled for a day tour of Munster, about two hours by bus from Detmold. Early in the morning, however, the bus company advised the roads were very icy and our German hosts from Grabbe Gymnasium decided that an early morning road trip was not a good idea. Instead, a group of us visited the Lippe Landesmuseum in Detmold, while several others attended English and French classes at Grabbe Gymnasium with their hosts.  They had a free afternoon to explore in “downtown” Detmold, where shopping for German chocolate and other souvenirs was popular. By 5:30 p.m., they were back at Grabbe Gymnasium to change and warm up for the evening concert.

The second concert was a great success. The combined orchestras reached even greater musical heights in their second performance, reflecting their hard work in many hours of rehearsals. They earned a standing ovation from the large audience and played an excerpt from one of their pieces as a short encore. The student musicians wore their new Detmold exchange t-shirts during the second half of the concert. They were sentimental about their last performance and their final evening together in Detmold.

After the concert, the students gathered in a nearby classroom for the much-anticipated farewell party. The German host families contributed food for a potluck supper and the very hungry combined orchestra rapidly consumed every dish on the buffet table. Afterwards there was the ritual exchange of gifts among the adults (McLean fleece jackets for our Detmold hosts, and Grabbe Gymnasium polo shirts for us). Several of the Grabbe Gymnasium students are talented a cappella singers and they put on a short program of songs. The entertainment also included a special dance routine by McLean High School’s own Kevin Lee. Detmold and McLean friends had a wonderful time celebrating the final evening of an extremely successful and enjoyable exchange week in Germany.

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The market square in Detmold

(© McLean High School Orchestra)

Friday, February 5

The McLean contingent arrived bright and early at Grabbe Gymnasium, lugging instruments, backpacks and heavy suitcases for the journey home. There is a long tradition in the McLean-Detmold exchange that departures are emotional and the tears flow freely. The 2010 visit was no exception, as students hugged and kissed and hugged again, and promised to stay in touch via e-mail and Facebook. Finally, after many tearful embraces and heartfelt expressions of gratitude and friendship, the McLean group reluctantly boarded the bus. Their German friends lined the road to the school to wave good-bye, and ran after the bus on the icy road. As the bus got underway for the drive to Amsterdam, there were many sad faces and red eyes.

After a smooth and uneventful drive to Amsterdam, our next stop was a cultural visit. The bus dropped us off across from the train station and we walked for about ten minutes to the Anne Frank house. Our group heard a short background presentation about Anne Frank’s family and life before we went through the house and museum. The students were quiet and respectful throughout the tour. After a short walk through the light rain, we got back on the bus for the 40 minute ride to our airport hotel. We ate dinner at the hotel. By this time, we knew that a major snowstorm was heading straight for Washington, DC and we did not know how it might affect our return flight. 

Saturday, Feburary 6

We got up early, ate breakfast and loaded our luggage and instruments onto the airport shuttle bus. KLM had implied that our flight would depart for Washington. However, when we tried to check in, the computer would not cooperate and the KLM staff eventually revealed that our flight was cancelled! The Chamber Soloists spent several hours waiting on hard airport floors surrounded by instruments, backpacks and suitcases while the arrangements were made for KLM hotel vouchers. Then, they loaded everything back onto the shuttle and arrived back at the hotel just in time for lunch.  In the meantime, Al Rizkalla worked his persuasive magic with KLM and got us booked onto the same flight on Monday, February 8. 

By the time travel plans were sorted out, it was too late for excursions, so the Chamber Soloists had free time in the afternoon, followed by dinner at the hotel. Students enjoyed hanging out in their rooms listening to music, singing karaoke or watching TV in the evening. 

Sunday, February 7

Most of us slept a little longer and had breakfast by 10:30 a.m. before departing for a tour of Dutch villages about 45 minutes from the hotel. Thanks to chaperone Carol Benner, who found out about tour options from the hotel staff, we had a very enjoyable day visiting a cheese factory, a wooden shoe maker and a lovely traditional fishing village. The students learned about cheese-making and how to make wooden shoes, and then they contributed to the local economy. The tour guide pointed out the important sights as we drove through Amsterdam. Finally, we arrived back at the hotel for an early dinner and a surprise birthday ice cream cake complete with sparklers for Kevin Lee, who turned 18 today.  An intrepid group of football fans is resting up now, in preparation for the Super Bowl kick-off at midnight, Amsterdam time. Thanks to Carol, we made very good use of an unexpected extra day in the Netherlands. Tomorrow, we expect to fly back to Washington and the winter wonderland that awaits.

Monday, February 8

The Chamber Soloists and their chaperones returned safely to Washington, DC.