For years the Chelsea House Orchestra, also known as CHO, has been going out of its way (and out of the country) to give Chelsea students the opportunity to go on exciting trips abroad and perform there. These trips have allowed the program to find new musicians looking for a change of pace and seeking out the musical background and history that comes with being a part of CHO.

“It’s an amalgamation of professional CHO musicians and current young CHO high schoolers,” Orchestra director Phillip Sylvester said. “CHO has been performing for thirty years now and they have a lot of the same tunes, so there are current professional musicians who are thrity-five and have kids and that were in CHO in the 90s.”

These trips have been a constant for CHO over the years, such as visiting China in the spring of 2019, demonstrating the strength and passion of their program. However, these trips are like Rome; they can’t simply be thrown together in a day. There are a lot of factors the advisors and members have to consider.

“Each person going has to pay,” senior Megan Hayduk said. “We’ve done summer performances and we took donations for this trip which are going towards our performance costumes because we wanted to have something special and different for this trip versus what we just normally wear in our other performances.” 

Although payment has affected many students’ choices of going, they still enjoy the performances CHO participates in locally. The opportunity to perform isn’t the only draw for the trip however, it’s the opportunity to see another side of the world that also appeals to student musicians.

“Just experiencing another culture and seeing new and interesting things, especially the architecture,” Hayduk said. “Whenever I travel I always like seeing the architecture wherever I travel to. I also want to be a Spanish teacher so I’m hoping to be speaking some Spanish when I go.” 

The trip planned for this year is a journey to Spain and will hopefully broaden students’ horizons and spread their love for music beyond the borders of Chelsea.

“This is a way to go perform and spread music for people all over,” Sylvester said.