Flandreau music students perform California concerts, enjoy ocean swim

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Forty Flandreau High School musicians took a bus to California this month to perform at Disneyland’s California Adventure park and experience the ocean and other sites.

The band and chorus students in grades 9-12 spent a week on a trip that included a roughly 32-hour bus ride each direction.

Their first stop was Newport Beach where the young people from the prairie got to swim in the Pacific, a highlight of the trip, both directors said. The students also liked snorkeling, parasailing, paddle boarding and hiking on Catalina Island.

While at Disneyland, where they spent two days, the groups each performed a concert of songs they had played this past year. There were 31 students in the band and 18 in the choir, with some students in both, accompanied by seven adult chaperones.

“It was kind of cool for the kids to see what the backstage process is like for a stage like that,” said Pat Weight, band director. The students saw what went into preparing for the concert, and learned that only union workers are allowed to move equipment.

Disney provided some of the instruments, including percussion, so the band did not have to haul them from Flandreau.

The group also visited Hollywood and attended the musical “Newsies.”

Grace Johanson, who will be a junior this fall, exchanged the bus trip for a flight after finding out she and her teammates made it to the state golf tournament, which overlapped the music trip. The team placed fourth and Johanson 19th as an individual player before she and a chaperone flew to California.

“We actually got there an hour before they performed so I did the warm up with them,” she said. Johanson plays percussion and sang alto in the choir. “I knew I’d make one performance. Being able to make both was still really cool.”

Johanson, who saw an ocean for the first time and enjoyed snorkeling off Catalina Island, said the trip provided experiences that area available in a small Midwestern town. She was glad she got to do both golf and music events.

“Both are really big aspects of my life. I have a really big passion for golf, and I have always had a passion for music,” she said.

In addition to Flandreau’s trip, Colman-Egan High School music students also traveled this summer with a tour to New York City. Flandreau also has traveled to New York, Nashville, San Antonio, Denver and Chicago over the years.

“I’d like to take the kids back to New York in two years. I just think a trip to New York is something every kid should do. It’s just an experience so unlike where we live,” Weight said.

Flandreau students start raising money for their trips, with two offered during their high school years, when they are in fifth grade. The Flandreau Music Boosters also help with the experience.

“We are really fortunate that we have a good group of parents that help the music department,” said Lori Kneebone, choir director. As well as the community folks who purchase things the students are selling say one parent. They also make these trips happen.

Trips are valuable because students are able to perform in venues where they may never have that experience again and spend time with friends, she said. “They’re good for kids because they give them an opportunity to see things that they might not ever see.”