David Merrill
David Merrill is a band director at Longmont High School in Longmont, Colorado. Merrill travels with his band every other year, usually alternating between a “theme park” destination (Los Angeles or Orlando) and a more cultural oriented location (like New York or similar). He has also done trips with band members to Japan. Trips typically have workshops with collegiate conductors, and they will take in a major symphony orchestra or similar professional performance. On the Japan trips, they spend extensive time partnering with a local youth band in order to learn how their “band culture” and approach differs from what we do here in the United States.
Why are you passionate about student travel?
When I was in high school, our marching band traveled to Portland, Oregon for the Portland Rose Festival Parade and Vancouver, Canada for the World’s Fair. I remember the lead up to that trip, the excitement of rehearsing, planning, and then finally boarding a plane with my friends. Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, were new places for nearly all of us. Experiencing so many new places brought our group closer together and enriched our lives in a way that only travel can.
When I became a band director, I wanted to provide that experience for my students. Nearly 30 years and around 25 student trips later, I feel that travel is one of the most important experiences I provide for my students. In addition to learning about the new place they are visiting, students learn a lot about themselves. They learn life skills about how to travel, budget, plan, pack, and take responsibility for themselves. Students grow up a lot during a trip. I truly believe it changes their lives.
What is a major highlight from any of your student travel experiences?
In 2017, I took a group of students to our sister city in Chino, Japan. There, we performed in a joint concert with students from the local high school. The two bands were able to overcome their language barriers and form a tight bond. The experience was so beautiful that there were many tears shed (from both groups) when it was time to leave. To this day, quite a few students are still friends with their Japanese hosts.
What is the greatest lesson you or your students have learned from your trips?
No matter how well you plan, there is always something that can go wrong. Sometimes those unplanned moments are the most memorable. Once, I was in New York City with my band. We were running a little ahead of schedule so, rather than arriving at the New York Philharmonic 90 minutes early, our tour guide asked if we wanted to see a few sights from our bus. So we took a detour through Harlem to drive past the famous Apollo Theatre. While making a right turn, someone tried to cut off the bus and ended up hitting the bus, luckily not very hard. We had to stop while the police boarded the bus to take statements from the students. We made it to the New York Phil, albeit a few minutes late. But our students never forgot the time they got to give statements to the New York Police Department!
How do you try to tie your travel experiences back into the classroom?
Wherever we go, I focus on what makes that location special. If we are traveling to New York, we learn about New York’s history, the importance of Ellis Island, the financial centers like the Stock Exchange, the Theatre District, the Media Headquarters for NBC, CBS, etc, the various art galleries. We preview the art they’ll see at the MOMA, or listen to the symphony program before attending the symphony, Once they are there, and seeing or hearing something they’ve learned about in their classroom, their connection to the lesson material, art or city is profoundly deepened.
From the nominator:
What qualities make this nominee, both as an educator and travel leader, deserving of this award?
David has always made the wise, educationally and musically focused decisions for his program and that is why I’ve always had deep respect for him. And the program and his students have benefitted from that.
