As anyone who went on the music department’s New York City trip can tell you, this “vacation” can best be described as a whirlwind! And to say it was a huge success is most certainly an understatement. We had the time of our lives!

From the moment the busses pulled out of Marshfield High School at 6:00 am, till the time they pulled back in on Sunday around midnight, the only “down time” was ON the actual busses and when we finally fell into our beds at 11:00 pm each night.

The trip included a visit to Rockefeller Plaza and all it has to offer, a ferry ride to Liberty Island for an up close look at the Statue of Liberty and then onto Ellis Island with sightseeing in their museum. One of the big surprises of the trip was how much the students enjoyed Ellis Island and researching how their ancestors may have come to this country. We went to the Museum of Natural History which was grander than this trip chaperone ever imagined it would be and so large that almost everyone, at one point or another, got lost in it! We took a tour of Ground Zero that was so moving, you could hear a pin drop in the midst of these 120 plus music kids, as they listened to the tour guide re-tell the events of that horrific day. We ate lunch in Times Square and dinner at Planet Hollywood. We shopped at the Seaport shopping area and haggled with street venders! It was a blast. One lucky chaperone came home with a “Pravda” bag, complete with a “Dolce and Gabanna” label on the inside! You don’t see that very often and all for under $20.00.

And then the kids did what they came to New York to do. They played music. The busses took them early Saturday morning to a school in New Jersey where the festival was being held. They performed their hearts out and then got on the busses again for an afternoon and evening of fun at Six Flags in New Jersey. And because of the huge talent and effort that our musicians bring to every performance, no matter how tired they are, each performing group won just about every award being offered for their group. In total, Marshfield High School won 24 trophies - so many that we needed help getting them out of the building and then out of the park! It was a glorious day and an even better night. (To cap this off, the music department just recently learned that the Marshfield High School Jazz Ensemble won the Grand Sweepstakes Award, which is presented to the highest scoring performing group in ALL of the Showcase Festivals.)

Our final day in New York ended with a trip to Broadway to see “West Side Story”. To see this musical live on stage is a thrill but to see it live in New York City was nothing short of a dream come true for this chaperone. Then it was back on the busses for the long ride home. We pulled in after midnight, exhausted, but bursting with stories to tell our families about our incredible trip to New York.

I would be remiss if I did not add that the behavior of our music participants was nothing short of exemplary. One of the bus drivers, who had tears in her eyes when she dropped us all off, said in her years of doing these tours, over and over again, high school after high school, she has NEVER dealt with a more well behaved and respectful group of students than those at Marshfield High School. Our music students did their school proud, both on the stage and on the streets of New York City!