By Trace Salzbrenner — [email protected]
When Concord-Carlisle High School senior Meilynn Teng joined the chorus, she thought it would be just a fun elective.
She had sung in middle school. She was good, participating in a few honor choirs, and she enjoyed it.
Now, making music will take her to the other side of the globe.
Teng is one of dozens of students in the CCHS music program who are raising money for next spring’s trip to Japan, where they’ll visit Hokkaido, including the district’s sister school in Nanae.
For some, the trip is not just a tour of the country but a chance to experience life beyond what Teng calls the “Concord-Carlisle bubble.”
On this journey, “I get to see more of Japan besides just the city,” she said. “I do like traveling with my family, but it can also be really, really fun to travel with friends, people your age, and experience it together.”
There’s “a long tradition of travel, specifically to Nanae with the band program at CC, which happened well before either of us got here,” Christopher Noce, director of bands and orchestras at CCHS, said in a joint interview with Choral Director Sarah Grina.
That tradition was suspended in 2020 during the pandemic. “One of the big questions after Covid was, when will Japan travel start back up again?” Noce said.
After a smaller 26-student trip to Japan last school year, this year’s trip is supposed to return to form, with 64 students planning to travel.
Fundraising efforts
Another senior, Sofia Hughes, began participating in Concord’s music programs in elementary school. This Japan trip, she said, feels like a perfect culmination of her experiences.
“It’s an amazing way to kind of end my music career in Concord,” she said. “It’s really nice as a senior to just have this last big trip with all my best friends.”
But she also conceded that the trip is expensive, and some students need help to make it work. “A lot of people are counting on fundraising to lower the cost,” she said.
The music department recently held a fundraiser at Chipotle and a Blue Ribbon BBQ night. The program’s annual poinsettia sale, happening this month, will help offset costs.
“It’s inevitably a pretty expensive endeavor, with airfare and instrument rentals and everything that goes into a trip like this,” Grina said. “We’re trying to make it more accessible for all students. We believe the trip is important, and we want every student who wants to go to have the opportunity.”
Hughes couldn’t be more excited for that opportunity.
“I think it’s going to be really fun to meet people my age in Japan,” she said. “I don’t speak Japanese, and I don’t know if they’ll speak English, but I think it’ll be amazing to just see how different our lives are and experience a completely different culture.”
AloJapan.com