In May, the department of music will be taking instrumental and vocal students on a 10-day trip to Germany then to Austria to perform in Salzburg and Vienna.

“We like to do something big with the department every three or four years,” Randall Hooper, director of vocal activities, said. “The last big thing we did was Carnegie Hall, and it was time to do a collaboration again. So, Mr. Clements and I just decided we wanted to go to Europe because we have never done that as a big group.”

While in Salzburg, the group will be performing at The University Mozarteum Salzburg, or Universität Mozarteum Salzburg. The Mozarteum was founded in 1841 to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of Mozart’s death.

While in Vienna, the group will be performing at the University of Vienna, or Universität Wien where there is a possibility of a collaboration between A&M-Commerce’s choir and the University of Vienna’s choir.

The instrumental students will also perform with each combined performance consisting of dividing the time between the two groups.

“We want to give our music students those kinds of special opportunities to have the chance to perform in both international and national locations,” Hooper said.

In addition to performing, the students will get to experience many places in each city including locations from the film The Sound of Music which was filmed in Salzburg. The students will also visit one of Mozart’s houses, a Victorian amusement park, attend an Oompah Band performance, and visit one of the catacombs in Salzburg or Vienna.

“A lot of our students haven’t traveled much beyond the Metroplex, so we want them to understand that the world is a much bigger place than their lives,” Hooper said. “We want them to have a unique mountaintop-kind of musical experience. The friendship that comes from something like this can last a lifetime, so you hope that kind of memory can come from this and that they will build those bonds with the people that are on the trip.”