American Youth Honor Choir
European Concert Tour
2018 Summer — two weeks, 16 days
Dr. Peter A. Eklund, Music Director
(see itinerary below & contact your director for local info meeting)
~ France (Paris, Normandy, Bordeaux, Nice, Omaha Beach, Mt. St. Michel, the Riviera)
~ Monaco (Prince’s Cathedral, Monte Carlo)
~ Spain (Barcelona, Spanish Riviera)
~ Italy (Milan)
~ Austria (Salzburg)
~ Switzerland (Lucerne)
~ Germany (Munich, Dachau, the Rhine, Nürnberg, Frankfurt, Rothenburg, and more)
Congratulations! Your school has been invited to send singers on the 2018 American Youth Honor Choir Trip to Europe!
Only a select list of successful Midwest choral conductors are invited to nominate their best student-singer-performers. I personally promise you that this tour staff will be second to none.
Previous performance locations have included Paris’s Notre Dame Cathedral, St. Paul's Cathedral in London, major Gothic cathedrals in Reims, Rouen, Strasbourg, Metz, Vienna, Chartres, Canterbury, Bordeaux, amazing Baroque cathedrals in Salzburg (where Mozart was the court composer), Verona, Munich, Monaco, Milan, and amazing new spaces like Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia, Coventry Cathedral, and also an amazing antiphonal performance for Mass in St. Mark's in Venice of Gabrieli’s own music. Most fabulous music experiences travel to Europe to perhaps perform at just one of these grand venues. We've performed at them all and will perform at many again in 2018! In addition, we've performed at beautiful locations like Luxembourg Gardens in Paris, the American Cemetery in Normandy, on Omaha Beach (site of the D-Day Invasion), the stunning World Heritage site of Mt. St-Michel Abbey, the base of the breathtaking Swiss Alps, Prague, Christ Church in Oxford, and other historic cathedrals/churches/concert halls.
We’ve had an extraordinarily superb history of SOUTH DAKOTA students and families traveling with us in recent years, making up significant percentages of our recent trips; we know they would whole-heartedly endorse their experience. We'd be pleased and honored to have you with us in 2018. Each one of our 30+ past trips have been and were absolute tremendous successes. The select nature of the ensemble, ease in traveling with an a cappella choir, the tremendous world-class performance opportunities, travel-experienced chaperons, extended nature of the tour, and a full-time European escort were attributes of our recent trips (and will again be highlights of the 2018 trip). We feel confident that other past and former travelers from your area will give you a tremendous and accurate assessment of their experience in the Honor Choir.
We look forward to a local information presentation on MAY 11th @ 6:00pm in the high school choir room, presenting a power-point slideshow, discussing costs, funding the amazing experience through a friendly 12-month payment schedule, and answer other questions. We welcome family members to travel with us. We encourage (though not require) participants to be prepared to register (MasterCard, VISA, or check) at the local meeting and receive the introductory packet of information.
This opportunity to sing in many of the most significant, historical Gothic cathedrals is unequalled when you consider the countries/ cultures to be visited during 2 weeks. Having conducted more than a dozen All-State choirs, your music director has chosen a combination of regional All-State choral works, selections from the Catholic Mass, and other standard choral masterpieces appropriate for the settings in which we perform. Music will be supplied by the Honor Choir organization (for you to keep) and we will want the notes learned prior to meeting for some pre-trip / flight rehearsals and a pre-departure concert; there will be no additional audition.
Come join us on this exciting, cultural, historical, once-in-a-lifetime musical experience as each trip is significantly different. There should be an attached registration form (and more available at the information meeting). Registering at this meeting will guarantee you a place on the 2018 trip as there are limited openings. We look forward to seeing you at one of these important meetings.
Professor of Music &
203 Westbrook Music Building
UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA–LINCOLN
Lincoln, NE 68588-0100
Dr. Peter A. Eklund, Choral Director, was recently named one of the very few elite national quarter-finalists for the first-ever GRAMMY® NATIONAL MUSIC TEACHER OF THE YEAR (out of over 30,000 nominees). One of the most active and versatile conductors on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean today, Professor Peter Eklund possesses the unique ability to work effectively with musicians at all levels of performing capability and experience. His concertizing/clinician/ conducting schedule averages over 60 national and international concerts annually and includes a wide array of professional, instrumental, liturgical, festival, international, collegiate, and student ensembles throughout the Western Hemisphere. Trained as a classical pianist and organist in the finest traditions of Western historical music, he now is also a strong advocate for ethnic and world music spanning all genres.
Dr. Eklund has conducted his choirs in many of the world’s greatest performance venues including, Carnegie Hall, Washington DC’s Kennedy Center, the National Cathedral, and Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis, St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice, Christ Church in Oxford, Mozart’s Salzburg Cathedral, Paris’s Notre Dame, St. Stephen’s in Vienna, St. John the Divine and Alice Tully Hall in NYC, and in other famous cathedrals/churches and performance halls in New York, Chicago, Paris, Barcelona, Monaco, London, Coventry, Canterbury, Rouen, Chartres, Reims, Mt. St-Michel, & Verona. His choirs have performed on numerous American Choral Directors Association regional and national conventions where their frequency of performance set unprecedented national records.
Current and recent engagements include conducting All-State choirs in Iowa, Minnesota, Colorado, Indiana, South Dakota, Georgia, Missouri, and Alabama, master classes and adjudicating/clinic work in California, Texas, Hawaii, Florida, Virginia, New York, Iowa, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Missouri, Mississippi, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Chicago, conducting a regional ACDA honor choir, and directing summer youth honor choir trips to Europe’s greatest venues. He divides his time among three roles: conductor, guest lecturer, and teacher/mentor (with numerous former students performing professionally on both US coasts: Broadway, Lincoln Center, TV, and Oscar winning movies – and everywhere in between), and is Professor of Music and the Director of Choral Activities at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, where he heads the Masters and Doctoral choral conducting programs, conducts the nationally recognized University Singers, and conducts the nationally renowned University of Nebraska Varsity Men’s Chorus. However, his greatest role of all is that of husband to Teresa and father of their four sons: Ben, Bryant, Brady and Brantley.
Contact:
Dr. Peter Eklund, Professor and Director of Choral Activities
Glenn Korff School of Music
203 Westbrook Music Building
UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA–LINCOLN
Lincoln, NE 68588-0100
PURPOSE / MISSION: The Purpose of the American Youth Honor Choir is to encourage and support the continued development of high musical performance standards, expected of our young musicians, through an international program designed to enrich and expand their musical and cultural experiences. Through this program, the world will be able to see America’s youth at its finest.
ITINERARY
JUNE 23, 2018 – JULY 8, 2018
Proposed itinerary– subject to change
For details and other recent sample itineraries
visit our website: http://www.mamtinc.com/
Included:
Day 1: Meet AM at Midwest area hotel for group meetings, registration, & rehearsals. Overnight at hotel.
Day 2: Complimentary breakfast. Rehearsals, group meetings, and evening pre-tour concert for friends/ family/community.
Day 3: Complimentary breakfast. Bus to international airport and depart by international transatlantic flight. Dinner and overnight on board plane.
Day 4: After an early on-board breakfast, we arrive in Paris, and meet our tour escort and motor coaches, panoramic sightseeing tour of Paris. Visit museums, shopping, or visit the Louvre—the world’s most famous art museum—or stroll the Champs-Élysées, the Fifth Avenue of Paris—the world’s greatest shopping street. Overnight again in our great-locationed hotel, close to Montmartre, the hill-topped art-center of Paris where Picasso lunched with Hemingway and is the actual Bohemian and arts location of Puccini’s La Bohème and the root of the life-style that inspired the hit Broadway musical Rent. Optional dusk sight-seeing from the top of the Eiffel Tower, one of the world’s greatest icons. Remember, it is still light at 10PM in Paris, the “City of Light.”
Day 5: Complimentary breakfast. Performance at the one-and-only Notre Dame Cathedral!!! Depart for Normandy, Omaha Beach and a concert at the American Cemetery. Overnight in historic Caen (Normandy), the epicenter of conflict on D-Day during WWII on June 6, 1944.
Day 6: Complimentary breakfast. Visit the most amazing place on earth, Mont St. Michel, the abbey-topped massive solid granite mount that juts high out into the English Channel between England and France. We’ve performed there before. Enjoy a great midday stop at the former Pirate-haven St. Malo.
Day 7: Complimentary breakfast. Drive to Bordeaux, one of the most beautiful places in all Europe and give a concert in the magnificent Cathedral. Overnight there.
Day 8/9: Complimentary breakfast then drive to Barcelona, Spain, the site of the 1992 Summer Olympics and one of the most eclectic, beautiful, most visited, and unique cities anywhere. Sunday performance in Sagrada Familia. Free time to explore this incredible city and the amazing food.
Day 10/11: Drive along the southern coast of the Spanish Riviera and cross onto the French Riviera. Overnight in historic Nice & Monaco, the Kingdom that lies on the Mediterranean within France and just eight miles from the border with Italy. This state-within-a-country is a constitutional monarchy and, like France which borders it on three sides (the fourth side is the Mediterranean) uses the Euro and is a member of the European Union; performance in the Prince’s Cathedral in Monaco.
Day 12: Complimentary breakfast then drive to Milan, Italian fashion capitol; possible performance in the pink marble Cathedral. Overnight in Italy.
Day 13: After a complimentary AM breakfast, off to Austria, the Tyrolean Alps (the finest skiing in the world if it was winter) the world-famous Swarovski Crystal Factory in Innsbruck and check-in to our hotel near Salzburg. Salzburg is the birthplace of Mozart and of Classical music. Performance in the famous cathedral. Wander the sights of the movie “Sound of Music.”
Day 14: Travel into Germany and Bavaria’s capitol, Munich. It will offer some of the finest in real shopping and European life. Our hotel’s location will offer freedom to explore the BMW factory, the Olympic Village and/or other sites too numerous to mention. Munich, much of which was destroyed in WWII, has become a world-class modern city; it can easily claim to be a “most modern city of the world.” Free day to explore and concertize. Visit the Nazi Concentration Camp at Dachau. And off on the autobahn, what is more romantic than medieval Rothenberg, Germany, one of the very few remaining walled cities in Europe. Rothenberg, and its ramparts will conjure visions of what life must have been like centuries ago. Time for independent sightseeing and shopping within the walls. Free time to explore the world’s largest Christmas store, rehearse and concertize in a Medieval church and walk the paths that have been walked for more than a millennium.
Day 15: Off to the Rhine hamlet of Rudesheim and a visit along the Rhine with view of castles nestled amongst the vineyards above the river. Performance at the mountain-top Abbey of St. Hildegard of Bingen overlooking the Rhine valley. Final evening party, dress up, polka band, dinner, and possible dance, and overnight on the outskirts of Frankfurt.
Day 16: Departure for Frankfurt airport to board your transatlantic flight back home, where you will be arriving the same day, in Omaha.
Many, many Happy Awesome Memories!!!
Responsibility Clause
The tour operator, Midwest American Music Tours, of Lincoln, Nebraska, PO 68501-4884, acts only as agent for the various companies whose services and accommodations are made available in the arrangements in itinerary. The foregoing assumes no responsibility or liability in connection with the services in or on any vessel, train, hotel, motor-craft, aircraft, or other conveyance which is used, whether wholly or in part, in the performance of its duty to the passengers. In the event that it becomes necessary or advisable, for any reason whatsoever, to alter the itinerary or arrangements, such alterations may be made. Additional expense, if any, shall be borne by the passengers. Conversely, refunds will be made to the passengers if any savings are effected thereby. All rates are based on tariffs and cost in effect on the date of your Terms of Agreement and are subject to change and/or confirmation when final payment is made. The right is reserved to withdraw tour, or a portion of it, should circumstances warrant such action. The Tour Operator and/or its agents make all arrangements for accommodations and sightseeing. Participating airlines are not to be held responsible for any act, omission, or event, during the time the passengers are not on board their aircraft or conveyances. Payment of deposit and final balance on the cost of arrangements described in the itinerary (or any other material of any sort mentioning the itinerary) or its contents signifies acceptance on the part of the purchaser of all the terms and conditions as set forth in the itinerary. It further signifies understanding and acceptance or the part of said purchaser and/or passengers of the limitation of the airlines’ responsibility to the terms and conditions set forth in the jacket of the passage contract (electronic air ticket) issued.
Adult Tour
(for non-performing adults only, no student upgrades)
For only $275 above the base price, relatives and friends may accompany the tour and take advantage of the group’s savings but using only two-person rooms throughout. This is a very great deal for the money.
Coordinated by:
MIDWEST AMERICAN MUSIC TOURS, INC.
—20+ years of experience in student travel
PO Box 84884
Lincoln, NE 68501-4884
Email: mamtinc@inebraska.com
Web: mamtinc.com
TOUR INCLUSIONS:
· Complete pre-tour coordination
· YouTube uploads selected performances
· Round-trip jet transportation from selected departure cities, with meals served on board flight
· All land transportation & transfer per itinerary
· River or channel boat transportation
· Adult music educator chaperones
· Three tour/performance shirts
· Breakfasts and many evening dinners
· Services of a professional European escort throughout the land portion of the tour
· All taxes and tips for hotel /restaurant services included on the itinerary
· Driver and Escort tips
· All performance/concerts (with publicity) as per itinerary & music supplied in advance of the tour
· No homestays
· University Brass Ensemble
· Downloadable music and mp3 rehearsal assistance for performers
Please note: Not included are passport fees and items or services of a personal nature not specifically mentioned herein, such as extra meals, souvenirs, independent sight-seeing, laundry, drinks, as well as double room supplement.
American Youth Honor Choir
