Parkes student, Alex Williams, joins West of the Divide European Performance Tour

They are just some of the gigs on the program for Parkes High School student Alex Williams as she joins 71 other talented musicians from 39 public schools for the West of the Divide European Performance Tour of Europe.

The students will form the fourth West of the Divide band tour and travel to Europe this month for scheduled performances in Rome, Florence, Venice, Bled and Zagreb.

Fifteen-year-old Alex, who has been playing the flute for five years, is very excited about the trip. 

“It will be my first time overseas,” she said.

“I’m really excited because it’s going to be so amazing but I’m a little bit nervous at the same time.

“Some of the songs are hard, it’s been a lot of work already and it’s going to be a lot of work over there too.

“We will be doing masterclasses there with professional musicians, that side of it is a bit daunting but I’m really, really excited to go.”

Alex said the opportunity to participate on the tour was presented to her at a western region band camp at Lake Burrendong. 

“I played as the first flute there and one of the directors asked if I would be interested in going to Italy and gave me some forms,” the Year 9 student said.

“It was pretty amazing, I didn’t have to sign up or anything.

“So I filled out the forms and then in the October holidays I went to a preparation camp where we had a week of playing together and we’ll meet again for intensive rehearsals just before we leave.”

The students will perform in some amazing venues and experience workshops with international maestros, school visits and workshops and in two Australian embassies, one in Rome on arrival and one on Australia Day in Zagreb.

In Croatia, they will live the culture through experiencing a vocal Clapa singing workshop.

Clapa is a Croatian folk singing style.

The students are supported by an amazing team of teachers and music tutors who are professional musicians.

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