By Eric Stock

NORMAL –  Some students at Normal West High School are traveling far west this summer as the school band’s wind ensemble will be playing in Sydney, Australia.

Junior Lewie Brown, who plays bass clarinet, has never spent 22 hours on a plane.

“I really can’t wait to see how it goes because I’m real exicted,” Brown said. “It’s my first time leaving the country.”

Band co-director Ryan Budzinski said the scheduled trip to Sydney is as much about culture as the music.

“The musical language transcends country boundaries,”Budzinksi said.

The band will take part in a cultural exchange in which it will blend with a high school band from Australia for a performance where they will play each other’s music.

The band has several performances planned in Sydney. They will be performing a piece written by Robert Sheldon, a prominent composer from Normal, who wrote pieces to mark Normal West’s opening 20 years ago and the school’s 10-year anniversary.

His latest piece, ‘With Every Sunrise’ will make its world premier ‘down under.’

“The piece I’ve done here for them is very lyrical and expressive, so it plays well into their program because they are doing a lot of (pieces) that are very bombastic,” Sheldon said. “This is kind of a change of pace for them in the program.”

He added the commissioned piece was written for his late partner.

Junior oboist Nick Koch said the band is learning how to put ‘thought’ behind the music.

“Putting emotion into music, I think defines a true musician,” Koch said. “If you can put some thought behind a phrase or a line in a piece of music, that gives it purpose.”

The 50 band members will spend a week in Australia starting in late June. Band members had to pay or raise $3,500 to cover the cost of the trip.

This marks the first time the Normal West band has played in a foreign country. It’s performed previously at Carnegie Hall in New York, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and on a cruise ship in the Bahamas.

Eric Stock can be reached at [email protected].