For more than 20 years, the Greater Greenwood Community Band has been one of the most popular and enduring musical traditions in the county.
The all-volunteer band has become a regular feature of the city’s summer concert series, and its Christmas concert draws hundreds of music-lovers from around the community.
But after years of bringing classical and band music to local audiences, members are taking their talents overseas.
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Click here to purchase photos from this galleryThe Greater Greenwood Community Band will embark on a European tour of sorts, performing in the Netherlands for a week-long trip. The goodwill trip will pair the band with local Dutch groups, allowing the two musical cultures to learn from each other.
“This is something that community bands just don’t get the opportunity to do,” said Thom Dirks, director of the band. “A group grows so tight together and becomes such a compatible organization on trips like this. They learn so much.”
The band has traveled to small festivals throughout the state, but this will be its first major touring trip, Dirks said.
“We’re really setting a kind of precedent for community bands to travel like this. I don’t know any other band that has made a trip like this,” he said.
The trip first started coming together a few years earlier, and was instigated by two of the band’s members — Mirjam Vermeulen and her son, Rutger. The family used to live in Netherlands before moving to the Center Grove area.
Mirjam Vermeulen plays the French horn in the band, while Rutger Vermeulen is a timpani player.
In their many trips visiting their former homeland, they often play with Dutch community bands there. Slowly, the idea started to emerge about bringing the Greenwood band with them.
“My mother thought that it would be really cool if we could take a trip to the Netherlands to show them what we could do,” Rutger Vermeulen said. “The community band here could play with the community band there.”
The Vermeulans’ connection forged a sort of cultural exchange, where a composer they knew in the Netherlands wrote original music for the Greenwood band to play in its own concerts.
“They brought a couple pieces back for us to play, and we thought it was really, really good music,” Dirks said. “The family started talking, thinking it would be really neat if we could get the two bands together. They took the idea back to the Netherlands, and they thought it was a great opportunity for everybody.”
With a concept in their minds, Dirks started making plans for the trip. He worked with a travel agent that he had used during his career as director of the Center Grove High School bands. He has experience traveling with those bands to places such as Hawaii, California and Arizona.
One of his last trips with Center Grove was to Germany and Austria.
They composed an itinerary that included three concerts with Dutch bands as well as a number of tourist and cultural experiences.
They’ll take in the famous Aalsmeer Flower Auction in Amsterdam, situated in a building the size of 100 football fields that serves as the center of the European flower industry.
Members will have the chance to tour Amsterdam’s canals, go to the Gassman Diamond Factory and take in the mournful history of the Anne Frank House.
Their travels will also take them to noted Dutch areas such as the city of Delft, birthplace of the famous painter Johannes Vermeer; the Hague, seat of the Dutch government and home of the Royal Family, and to Alkmaar, the site of a famous cheese market.
“We’re not going over there just to play. We need to be enjoying the area as well,” Dirks said.
But in the end, the true reason for the trip is the music.
The concerts will be a chance for the band to perform traditional American music from composers such as John Phillip Sousa and George Gershwin.
At the same time, the band is working on a selection of pieces from famous Indiana musicians such as Hoagie Carmichael, Fred Jewell and Richard Saucedo.
The band will also play some of the Dutch music they’ve been working on.
“I’ve selected the music of things that we’ve played over the past four or five years that would representative of our musical style,” Dirks said. “We already know the music, so we don’t have to teach anything new, we just have to rehearse it.”
The trip is voluntary for the band, and each member is responsible for the costs, which can range from $1,200 to $1,500 depending on how many people sign up.
Dirks would like to have a 65 to 70-piece band go, and he’s getting close to that commitment from the band’s 83 members.
To help with the costs, the band has started a GoFundMe page where people can make donations. They also plan to host a series of fundraisers.
For the Vermeulens, the trip will be an excellent bridge between their two cultures.
“I think it will be a great chance to show what we do here in America, and compare it to what they do in the Netherlands,” Rutger Vermeulen said.
And Dirks sees it as the start of what could become a new mission and opportunity for the band.
“I’m expecting to come back with a fine group that’s really excited about what they’ve done, and are ready for other adventures,” he said.
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Greater Greenwood Community Band
Netherlands Trip
When: June 5 to 12, 2017
Support the band: To help with funding for the trip, the band has started a GoFundMe page where people can make donations. Find more information at GoFundMe/ggcbtrip. Donations can also be mailed to PO Box 203, Greenwood, 46142.
Schedule
June 5: Fly to Amsterdam
June 6: Arrive in Amsterdam; attend Aalsmeer Flower Auction; stay overnight in Monnickendam
June 7: Amsterdam sightseeing, including a canal boat ride, Dam Square, the Museum district, Gassman Diamond Factory and the Anne Frank House.
June 8: Tour the city of Delft, home of Johannes Vermeer and the Delftware ceramics factory; visit the Hague, seat of government and the Royal Family in the Netherlands.
June 9: Perform a concert in Soest; tour northern part of Holland, including the windmill of Scherrnerhoorn, the Alkmaar Cheese Market and the National Military Museum.
June 10: Free afternoon in Amsterday, attend a Dutch concert
June 11: Rehearsal and concert in Grote Kerk
June 12: Return to the U.S.
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Christmas Concert
When: 7 p.m. Dec. 10
Who: Greater Greenwood Community Band
Where: Greenwood Community High School auditorium, 615 W. Smith Valley Road
Admission: Free, though a donation of canned goods for Greenwood’s Salvation Army food bank is requested.
Information: greenwoodband.com
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