High School Band to Perform in Europe

The Agoura High School jazz band will take its act on the road this summer in a three-week European cultural exchange program that will include performances in Germany and the Netherlands.

And although few of the band members have been outside the country and fewer still speak German, band teacher John Mosley said the students will express themselves musically.

“The language we’ll be communicating with them is jazz,” Mosley said. “They study jazz there and we study jazz here, and it’s played the same way throughout the world.”

The students will board a plane for Germany on Tuesday to participate in Ibbenburen, Germany’s biyearly Pink Jazz Festival, an international jazz and big band workshop for young musicians, and will room with local families.

Mosley said the trip will provide valuable lessons to the teenagers.

“The teachers in the camp will enhance their skills, of course, in jazz,” Mosley said. “But I’m hoping the social skills of the Germans will be learned also.”

Trombonist Megan Bowers, 15, said she is less nervous about performing with strangers than she is concerned with fitting in. “I’m kind of worried about what they’ll think about our American habits, like taking 20-minute showers,” she said. “I can only take nine- to 10-minute showers there.”

During the first half of the trip the students will take part in music classes where they will learn pieces for the tour. The second half will be spent performing several concerts, including a benefit show for the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam.

The band has received local community support for the excursion, including an $1,800 endowment from the Westlake Village Cultural Grant program and an $8,000 gift from the Westlake Rotary Club.

The invitation to the festival was reciprocation for a similar exchange program in Agoura attended by members of the Ibbenburen’s Pink Pop band last year.