The D.P. Todd band has travelled far and wide with teacher Susan Klein as the bandleader.
It's always a new group of students each couple of years, though, so the individual players only get to add a few personal miles compared to the school group's long road.
"We'd been talking since Grade 8 that just maybe, Cuba could be the big Grade 12 trip," said graduating trumpet/percussion player Morgan Aucoin. "Cuba was the one place we most wanted. The music there is incredible and we wanted to go before everything gets Americanized."
Klein had taken a set of students to Cuba in 2011 so she had familiarity with the place and the process of that travel route. She also knew that if offered a chance at two focal learning points: music and philanthropy.
"Each kid has four extra bags as luggage, and they are filled with things we are donating there," said Klein amongst a throng of students circling the band room from station to station, picking out items with which to stuff these charity backpacks. Everything from soccer shoes to toiletries, musical instrument repair items to clothing to school supplies was arranged into the gift packs.
All the items filling these philanthropic sacks were gathered from charitable people, businesses and organizations around the city.
That expression of generosity by Prince George was another part of the lessons the D.P. Todd students were getting.
"We are going to different schools, a community centre, a centre for people with Down Syndrome, all along the way we will be doing humanitarian work and performing with other bands there," Klein said.
Forty-six kids are making the trip, most from Grade 11 and 12, and a few from Grade 10. Klein said the trip to Cuba was not something that came up on a schedule. She spotted an extra level of intellectual engagement and emotional maturity in this cohort, even when they were back in their feeder schools progressing towards D.P. Todd secondary. Their hard work and positive attitude earned them the opportunity.
"This will help them get a deeper understanding of another culture and this is an important one musically," said Klein.
"Cuba puts a lot of emphasis on music knowledge. The quality of playing is really high there. It's a big part of culture. That expression of being a Cuban really gets made through music."
They depart on Friday and return on Easter Sunday, April 16.
"Waterfalls, Caribbean culture, all those people we get to deliver the backpacks to, all the performances we get to do, everything is exciting," said Aucoin. "I'm just happy to make people happy, if that's through a gift we can bring that will help them out, or through music. We are going to get back so much, too, just soaking it all up."
"We will be mostly stationed out of Havana and we will meet and perform with Cuban students and teachers at the local arts schools," Klein said.
"We get a chance to actually meet and get to know other students our age, and play with them, and they with us. Not only that but our jazz band will be the opening act at the famous Jazz Cafe."
Once this trip is finished, Aucoin will have to find a new way to infuse her musical skills into her life. Many of her D.P. Todd band peers are in the same situation. Aucoin is a entering the biomedicine program at UNBC following graduation, but she has already been sitting in one of the mentorship chairs with the Prince George Symphony Orchestra, so she's crossed her fingers for more local performances in her post-secondary life.
