Seventeen-year-old Diego Garcia-Barranco had never been outside the country, let alone flown in a plane, until last month.

The DeKalb High School senior’s first flight took him to new heights, as he embarked on a trip to the Czech Republic.

“This trip, by itself, has definitely shown me international travel isn’t that bad,” Garcia-Barranco said.

Garcia-Barranco was among 117 students from DeKalb High School’s band and orchestra programs, who had a special opportunity to travel to the Czech Republic from Nov. 22-29.

The trip had been a long time in the making.

For years, students and their families have petitioned for the opportunity to make the Czech Republic their destination of choice.

Garcia-Barranco, who plays tuba in both the high school’s band and orchestra programs, said the trip was worth it.

“I think it shows how great of things we can accomplish when our community comes together to support great students,” Garcia-Barranco said.

Garcia-Barranco was joined on the trip by both the high school’s band and orchestra directors, Steve Lundin and Sheila Felder.

Lundin said he believes the trip speaks volumes about the high school and its efforts to provide a quality music education.

“We’re very committed to giving the kids those opportunities that there’s a certain expectation that they should receive as part of a really well-rounded music education program,” Lundin said. “These are the things we can do when people really decide to work toward a goal. And it really is very gratifying to see the kind of positive support we get when we do things that people can universally agree on are exciting and are great opportunities for kids.”

The high school’s music department has sent students and staff on trips in the past, but not all of them involve traveling overseas.

Students toured Ireland in 2017, California in 2021, and Indianapolis, Indiana in 2023.

In January, the DeKalb School District 428 school board approved plans for the students to travel to Prague, Czech Republic.

Lundin said a previous trip planned for the Czech Republic had been canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some students raised funds to help pay for the trip, which came out to cost $3,300 per person, school board documents show. That expense, which didn’t fall on the district, covered all travel, hotel lodging and meals.

As the group’s travels got underway, students and staff were sent off in style, with a crowd lining up outside the high school to bid them farewell.

“On a really grand scale, we’re really just trying to show the kids a larger perspective on the world. We want them to see culture beyond DeKalb. We want them to know the way that their art form can take them to new places and how it can translate in other countries.”

—  Steve Lundin

Garcia-Barranco said his parents were proud to send him off.

“It was definitely, for me, it was emotional,” he said. “For my parents, this is definitely something incredible seeing because my parents didn’t necessarily come from very regular backgrounds or childhoods. But I think for them, this is a big turning point in their lives, especially a turning point in my life, since they were never really involved with music.”

Lundin said many of the students could relate to Garcia-Barranco.

“For a lot of the kids, it was one of their first experiences away from home,” Lundin said.

In their travels, students and staff were greeted by many sights and sounds.

The group toured attractions and historical sites in the Czech Republic, including the tree under which Ludwig van Beethoven composed music and homes where Beethoven and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart once lived.

The high school’s band and orchestras each performed during their travels.

One of the highlights of the trip was when the band performed in the Prague Christmas Parade and in the Pilsen Christmas Market in Pilsen Town Square.

The orchestra performed in the Sedlcany Community Centre, a community hall in a town south of Prague, and Hlalhol Hall, the concert hall in Prague where prominent Czech composers Antonín Dvorjak and Bedřich Smetana have played.

Felder and Lundin said students were prepared for the moment.

“There’s a ton of teambuilding ... as we get ready for these tours, [tying] in so much musical history and culturally how to play this literature,” Felder said. “Because something that you play from America, you’re going to articulate differently than something that you play from the Czech Republic. We were able to teach the kids how to play different literature correctly.”

“It was kind of like it’s just another performance except it wasn’t just another performance,” Lundin said. “We were ready anyway, because it’s just part of what we do.”

Lundin said both students and staff took a lot from the experience.

“The music that you pick, all of that stuff, you learn every time you go, what’s really going to be successful,” Lundin said.

For example, the band knew they wanted to arrange a Mariah Carey song that they were told is popular in the Czech Republic, Lundin said: The singer’s classic Christmas bop, “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”

“You really want to learn how to meet your audience where they are,” Lundin said.

There’s a lot that goes into meeting an audience where it is. But Felder said staff had a hand in guiding students.

“This is actually my eighth time taking a high school group over there,” she said. “I knew what the audience responds to there. So, that was a great insight into how to program. ... You really have to do your homework because you want it to be successful all the way around for your listeners and for your performers.”

The trip provided a venue in which many of the skills and knowledge taught in DeKalb High School’s band and orchestra programs took center stage.

Lundin said there is value in the real-world experiences students had on the trip.

“On a really grand scale, we’re really just trying to show the kids a larger perspective on the world,” Lundin said. “We want them to see culture beyond DeKalb. We want them to know the way that their art form can take them to new places and how it can translate in other countries.”

Garcia-Barranco said he was amazed by the way audiences received the band and orchestra’s performances.

“Like in Europe, it’s not very common to have high schools parading down the streets of cities,” he said. “For them, it’s something that they don’t get to experience. For us, we have three or four parades every year. ... People were stopping what they were doing just to come see us. I think simply having the ability to share that feeling is incredible.”

While there may have been a language barrier between students and spectators, Lundin said he believes the band was primed for the task of commanding an audience’s attention, as they did in the Prague Christmas Parade.

He said they all had what it takes to represent DeKalb proudly in front of an international audience.

“Music is often referred to as the universal language,” Lundin said. “You can go play anywhere in the world, and presumably, we have an audience – and we have some really great audiences – which was super exciting."

The group’s performance reminded Lundin of the power of the language of music.

“Like music, it travels well,” Lundin said. “I think, on a certain level, it’s really part of a good music education that, ‘Hey, you got to take your instrument out and share it with the world.’”