Dear John and staff of MCI;

Please accept my sincerest thanks for an inspiring and superb trip this past summer. It was indeed an honor to be invited to serve as an Artistic Director for the prestigious Lucerne International Choral Festival. The program was first-rate in every way; it was administrated and organized to a “T”; everything was professionally and smoothly handled. The concert hall was truly magnificent- stunning- acoustically a conductor’s dream, and the Santa Maria Orchestra did a wonderful job, demonstrating a completely supportive attitude. The singers from the eleven different ensembles from across the USA arrived thoroughly prepared and participated with enthusiasm in every rehearsal, delivering an inspiring performance.

Special thanks must also go to all of the directors for preparing their singers so well, and for being supportive throughout the festival. Each of them proved a delight to work with, and must share in the kudos for this wonderful event.

Thanks also for your “on-the-spot” assistance and flexibility- securing of fans and straws and such (those who were present know to what I am referring), and to accommodating us with utmost professionalism throughout the trip. Your entire staff deserves five stars in my book.

The Collegiate Chorale from Bowling Green State University also enjoyed a significant “post-Lucerne” tour, traveling to Italy, Austria and Hungary, and had the privilege of singing in St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice, Karlskirche and Stefansdom in Vienna and Esterhazy at Eisenstadt, and Matthias Church in Budapest. Again, every detail was so well cared for; every person working for MCI including bus drivers and tour guides, and our hosts throughout the trip were professional, personable, courteous, and wonderful to work with- they became part of our tour and community, making it very special indeed. The audience responded so beautifully to us- it makes me again realize that music is THE universal language, and connects us all; perhaps the greatest benefit of a trip like this is to realize that in the most profound and intimate way.

At the center of our tour was music, certainly, and people. We truly had the “trip of a lifetime,” starting with Lucerne and ending in Budapest.

Again, I thank you for inviting me to serve as Artistic Director of this wonderful event, for inviting the Collegiate Chorale from BGSU, and for sponsoring us on a magnificent tour. This is my third tour with MCI, and I am decidedly an MCI fan; I recommend you and your staff with the highest marks possible, and look forward to more endeavors with you in the future.
Sincerely yours,

Dr. William Skoog
Director of Choral Activities
College of Musical Arts
Bowling Green State University

Click here to read more about the tour.

Just a note to thank you all for a wonderful experience for the OSU Chorale last week in Switzerland. We had an absolutely grand week. The church service on Sunday was a musical highlight and great way to end the trip; the congregation was extremely receptive and stood to applaud for the singers at the end of the service. We were completely surprised by that response. It is a great space in which to sing so if you have other groups in the future who might be looking for a place in Interlaken, do suggest that one.

The organization was excellent; we saw so many things and the balance of rehearsal/performance and sight-seeing was very satisfactory. The students really enjoyed doing both. The KKL is a spectacular space, as you know, and we really enjoyed singing there. As a conductor, I felt people were very well prepared and really invested themselves in the process. I think the concert was very successful. Thank you for giving me and my students this opportunity.

We really enjoyed Iris Fuchs, our tour guide, and had a great time traveling with the Louisiana Tech University Choir; it was a very satisfactory collaboration.

I enjoyed meeting you all and appreciate what you do professionally. Thanks on behalf of all my students for giving us a lifetime of great memories, musical and otherwise.

Sincerely,

Hilary Apfelstadt
Director of Choral Activities, The Ohio State University

In our opinion, the Lucerne Festival and post tour to Austria was an overwhelming success and I can tell you without fear of overstatement that every member of our traveling group had a fantastic and memorable experience.

The highlight for us was the concert in Lucerne. The rehearsals and the wonderful interaction with Eph Ehly, his messages for life and his energy and positive re-enforcement will long be remembered. He is an extraordinary individual and teacher. He made each singer feel important and valuable and won us over to him immediately.

Our hats are off to all of you at Music Celebrations. You guys are a class act indeed.

Southern California Mormon Choir

Great tour from anyone’s standards! It more than met our expectations. The venues were well chosen and the audiences were warm and receptive, making our concerts wonderful experiences for our singers. Our tour managers were first class and all the meals and hotels were ideal for a group such as ours.

Doug Lawrence
Menlo Park Presbyterian Church

Although we arrived home separately, I know that everyone involved with this tour took with them once in a life time memories. From mass rehearsals in Lucerne with Eph Ehly, to the performance in the KKL, both with the mass choir and as an individual choir, our time in Lucerne was unique. Thanks to John Wiscombe and all of the Music Celebrations staff for their flawless execution of logistics, the vision to establish and produce what I think will be one of the premier festivals to attend, and their collective friendliness and professionalism. My singers and I didn’t feel like customers, but rather guests who were treated like professionals and colleagues.

Our time in Paris was packed with sight seeing and performances in venues that are not only acoustically, but also historically significant. Our tour manager, Patrick Fargier, went out of his way to make sure that we saw and did all we could do in the four days we were in Paris. He didn’t just do his job, but went out of his way to get to know the group and genuinely connected with them. Although I can’t afford to travel internationally every year, from my experience on this tour, the next time I plan to tour the world, it will be with MCI. To have the opportunity for my students to work with a world class conductor, sing in the same Cathedral where Napoleon was crowned, stand on top of the Eiffel Tower, and make music and friends with other singers has been priceless. The songs that we performed on this tour now hold memories that go way beyond the way they sounded, and hold a place in time that will not be forgotten by anyone who was there. One of my singers said the entire tour experience was “more than she expected and went way beyond what she could have hoped for.”

Thanks again,

Bruce C. Lengacher
Director of Choral Activities
Acalanes High School, Lafayette, CA

Thanks for a wonderful travel experience! A debrief with our joyfully tired kids shared a few things. This was the most thrilling learning/vacation week of their lives. The Lucerne Festival was so brilliantly organized and exciting, they all want to travel again with MCI very soon! Honestly, you can’t believe the gratitude of the kids and parents! We are eternally grateful to you and the amazingly talented staff of Music Celebrations International!

Terry Fischer, Choir Director
El Camino Real High School

Thanks to all the choirs that will be joining us in Lucerne this year!

The Homewood-Flossmoor Master Singers, under the direction of Mike Rugen, recently returned from a successful concert tour to northern Italy, Switzerland & Austria, performing as part of the American Celebration of Music in Austria concert series. The Master Singers were warmly received at each performance (six in all) by large, appreciative audiences. The Singers had the opportunity to sing in some beautiful spaces of historical (and musical) significance. They were able to perform in Milan’s Duomo, Salzburg’s Dom, Vienna’s St. Stephan’s Cathedral, and Vienna’s Karlskirche.

One of the highlights on the tour was being hosted for dinner in a true Viennese apartment, the home of Dr. Jutta Unkart-Seifert, an accomplished Viennese Opera Singer. Dr. Unkart-Seifert does this regularly for MCI groups visiting Vienna as a fundraiser for the many charities she is involved with throughout eastern Europe.

Music Celebrations is delighted to present the second annual International Choral Festival in Lucerne, Switzerland, featuring the artistic talents of Dr. Hilary Apfelstadt of Ohio State University, and Dr. William Skoog of Bowling Green State University.

Dr. William Skoog

This event will take place July 1 - 5, 2008 in Western Europe’s most spectacular new concert hall, the Kultur-und-Kongresszentrum (KKL).

Dr. Hilary Apfelstadt

The festival will be a combined choir of SATB singers from across the United States and Europe, and will feature the talented singers of the Bowling Green State University Collegiate Chorale, and singers from the Ohio State University.

Described by Alexandre Dumas as “a pearl in the world’s most beautiful oyster,” Lucerne is a striking mixture of modern, medieval, and baroque times, all surrounded by the backdrop of the beautiful Alps. Spectacular views and sights abound from almost every vantage point.

Most of the MCI staff traveled to Rome, Assisi, Florence, Cremona & Lucerne on our annual familiarization tour. While on tour, we experienced much of what our clients experience in terms of lodging, meals, guided tours, bus (& driver), and we visited several amazing performance venues. Each of us came back with a greater appreciation of what Italy can offer performing ensembles. One of the highlights of the tour was in Cremona, when the director of the Stradivari Museum played the “gem” of the Stradivarius collection for us!

While in Lucerne, we visited the world renowned KKL, western Europe’s finest performance venue, where we will be holding the Lucerne International Choral Festival. Each of us walked away a bit awed by the beauty of the hall and its wonderful acoustics. We are excited for the choirs attending the 2007 Festival!

We just returned from our tour to Switzerland and France, and I just wanted you to know that we had a wonderful experience. This is our second tour with MCI, and I am increasingly impressed with the company. The staff members at MCI are amazing. You are fortunate to have these people on staff; I’m convinced that people make the difference in the travel business! Your personnel are very strong both in the U.S. and in Europe, and a great strength of your company.

I thought that your suggestions for the general itinerary were right on target, and that the venues were perfect. We are grateful for the opportunity to sing during a Mass in Notre Dame Cathedral; it will be a precious, vivid memory for years to come. It will be hard to go back to our regular rehearsal room!

So many details come together to make a tour as special as this one. I am amazed that MCI has such quality in every aspect of them. You have a good thing going!

-Dr. Gayle Walker, Director of Choral Activities at Otterbein College

The Swiss have a long tradition of supplying mercenaries to foreign governments. Because the Swiss have been politically neutral for centuries and have long enjoyed a reputation for honoring their agreements, a pope or emperor could be confident that his Swiss Guards wouldn’t turn on him when the political winds shifted direction.

The Swiss Guards’ honor was put to the test in 1792, when–after trying to escape the French Revolution–King Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette, and their children were hauled back to the Tuileries Palace in Paris. A mob of working-class Parisians stormed the palace in search of aristocratic blood. More than 700 Swiss officers and soldiers died while defending the palace, without knowing that their royal employers–like Elvis–had left the building.

In the early 1800s, the Danish artist Bertel Thorvaldsen was hired to sculpt a monument to the fallen Swiss Guards. The sculpture was carved in a sandstone cliff above the city center, near Lucerne’s Glacier Garden and the Panorama, and it has attracted countless visitors since its dedication in 1821.

Groups participating in the Lucerne International Choral Festival will visit this monument while touring the city.

“I have performed or attended performances in many of the finest performance halls in the United States; however, I have never been as impressed as I am with the KKL in Luzern, Switzerland. It takes a couple of hours to tour the place. It is an architectural phenomenon difficult to describe. It has to be experienced. I am extremely excited to make music there, summer 2007. It will make each performer feel fortunate and professional. Making music in that place truly will be a highlight in my career. I can hardly wait.”

-Dr. Eph Ehly, Professor Emeritus at the Conservatory of Music, University of Missouri-Kansas City

The following are notes and pictures from Robert Bullwinkel, the choir director at Sunnyside High School in Fresno, CA. The Sunnyside High School Chorus recently returned from a European concert tour with MCI.

As the jet lag slowly fades, the images and memories of the Sunnyside High School chamber choir’s Sister City Tour become clear. Suffice it to say that the tour was everything we hoped it would be and more. Since it is impossible to recount everything,let me give you a few snapshots of the many memorable moments.

Paris
–a sunset cruise down the Seine as the stars came out and the lights of the Eiffel tower came on, then stopping on the Pont Neuf to see the Tower glowing against the deep azure sky with the moon shining above and the whole scene reflected in the water.
–the Sunday morning farmer’s market on the Rue Moufftard, sipping cafe au lait and watching the Parisians do their shopping.
–singing through our tears on the altar at Notre Dame as we realized that we had really made it there.
–our “live” broadcast back home to Fresno’s Finest

Muenster
–our first rehearsal with the choir from the Gymnasium Paulinem school (founded in the year 797), seeing the walls between the students break down, and then, after lunch together in the German students’ homes, seeing all of the new “best friends for life”.
–bringing down the house that night at the Festaal of the Rathaus in an awesome performance with the Paulinem choir. In the words of the Mayor’s office, “We have many fine choirs in Muenster, but we have never seen anything like this! The Festaal has never rocked like this before!!”
–seeing our bright and shining faces all over the morning papers the next day:)
–our performance in St. Paul’s cathedral and hearing the shimmering chords echo throughout the space
–our final performance in Muenster at St. Petronilla church. Word about the choir’s previous performances had gotten around and the church was packed to the rafters. We have never heard such applause nor seen multiple standing ovations that lasted for so long. I think that if we had more songs to sing we would be there singing still!

Switzerland
–a beautiful, sunny drive through the Alps and the view of the lakes at Interlaken surrounded by the snowcapped peaks
–two words: Swiss Chocolate

Riva del Garda
–being selected to sing in the opening concert of the International Choir Festival and giving the crowd some real American gospel music and having the audience of 48 choirs from 26 different countries clap along with us.
–gelato, gelato, gelato
–taking paddle boats out onto Lake Garda and seeing the foothills of the Alps wrapped around the beautiful Italian harbor.
–realizing that we were singing in a competition for huge college choirs and then giving our best performance anyway and holding our own with the older, bigger choirs.
(For the record, this was the first time in the eighteen year history of the event that an American high school choir entered into the competition. We were placed in category G3 for choirs aged 16-25. All of the other choirs, except one, were from colleges around the world. Coincidentally, there was one other American school entered in the category–Piedmont High School from the Bay Area with the highest public school API score in California for their enrollment. Sunnyside beat them handily. The G3 category was won by a private college choir from Singapore who went on to win the entire festival.)

Verona
–singing in the Baptistery of the 12th century Cathedral at a special service written just for our choir called “The rebirth of hope”. The program was sponsored by the city of Verona and the church with a pre-service dinner provided by the ladies of the church.
–performing “Only in America” on the steps of the City Hall which stands next to a Roman Arena built in the first century BC. Drawing a big crowd of enthusiastic listeners including a group of French teenagers who became part of the show and our biggest fans of the tour!
–strolling the streets in the beautiful spring weather and feeling very Italian.

The usual tour stuff…..
–lost luggage! Our sound gear finally joined us in Muenster, three days after we arrived.
–the neverending card games
–playing pool at the youth hostel
–getting sick and passing it around
–more walking than we thought humanly possible
–lost glasses recovered from a truck stop as we passed back through a week later
–everyone applauding as our Italian driver parallel parks the 50′ bus in a spot seemingly too small for a VW
–getting homesick and needing to talk to mom:)
–late nights and early mornings
–flirting with other teens and finding that puppy love has no language barrier
–Mr. de Jong grossing everyone out by eating horsemeat and mulemeat in Verona.
–fun and games with food (Becky, Romanita, Sandy and Marya!)
–shopping, shopping, shopping
–steppng around a corner and seeing yet another postcard view of an ancient city
–surly Sicilian waiters
–being kissed on both cheeks!
–hours spent on the bus
–getting in trouble for being late
–hauling our bags a mile straight uphill to the youth hostel in Verona
–travelling for nearly 24 hours straight to get home
–sending the police out to search for one of our missing chaperones
–cheering when we got back to the USA and realized how much we love our home.

You can check out more pictures and student blogs here.

The festival repertoire for the 2007 Lucerne International Choral Festival, under the artistic direction of Dr. Eph Ehly, has been announced!

Click here for the full details!

The Lucerne Tourism Board has been instrumental in helping us develop and promote the Lucerne International Choral Festival.

Click here to see a brochure from the Tourist Board about this beautiful city!

KKL - the festival venue

Music Celebrations International is pleased to announce the Lucerne International Choral Festival, July 3-7, 2007. The festival will be a combined choir under the direction of Dr. Eph Ehly accompanied by full orchestra in the outstanding Kultur-und-Kongresszentrum Luzern (Lucerne’s Culture and Convention Center [KKL] – see picture). Switzerland will also be a great starting point for a longer European tour which could include extensions into other parts of Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Germany and France.

The festival will feature outstanding SATB choirs from across the United States who will in their participation pay tribute to Dr. Ehly in a year where he will be celebrating his 70th birthday. The concert repertoire is not yet solidified, but Eph’s current thoughts are opening with Te Deum in C by Haydn, closing with Elsa’s Procession to the Cathedral by Wagner and between performing works such as Brahms’ Nanie, Mozart’s Vesperae Solennes de Confessore, Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, Puccini’s Messa di Gloria or Hanson’s Song of Democracy.

For more detailed information on how your choir can participate, please call Music Celebrations at 1.800.395.2036 or contact us through our web-form.