Hundreds of music students from Saratoga and Lynbrook high schools will showcase their ability to live and work together in harmony during a two-week field trip to Japan in June.
The Los Gatos-Saratoga Union High School District board on Jan. 8 approved the international field trip that would involve about 290 students and about 40 staff, parents and volunteers. Saratoga High School’s concert band, concert choir and symphony orchestra will be performing in the 2026 Japan Performance and Culture Exchange Tour. Choir students from Lynbrook High School in San Jose will be accompanying them. Saratoga High teachers Michael Boitz and Shelley Durbin will be chaperoning and instructing students during the trip. The school board determined that this would be a “unique opportunity” that would allow students to “perform in world-class venues and festivals, providing unparalleled educational value.”
Teachers and students, however, are looking forward to developing essential life skills that do not solely apply to music.
“When students spend two weeks away from their parents, they get to exercise muscles that they don’t have to exercise a lot of times in their day-to-day life,” Durbin said. “Their parents tell them where to go, what to eat, when to go to bed, what to work on next, and we do have a lot of parents’ support going on this trip, but they won’t be hovering over the kids saying, ‘Make this choice’ or ‘Make that choice.’”
Boitz said this trip took several years of effort and would have happened earlier if the exchange rate between the American dollar and the Japanese yen hadn’t been so low. The students will be performing for the Mount Fuji Music Festival and the Musashino Music Academy in Tokyo. They will also perform in Hiroshima and participate in a cultural exchange with the all-girls Hiiyama Junior and Senior High School Wind Orchestra.
For some students, the trip marks their first time traveling internationally. Several students said that their parents, siblings and other family members would be shadowing them during the trip.
Sophomore Brandon Chen plays trumpet in Saratoga High School’s concert band and said he is looking forward to having new experiences with a lot of his friends that he couldn’t find at home. He said the connections made at the high school run strong, with some alumni joining them on the trip as well.
Sophie Poon, a junior who sings in the alto section of the Saratoga High concert choir, said she was looking forward to traveling to Japan and singing with the Lynbrook choir students because it offered opportunities for connection and working together.
“Choir really gives me that sense of connection, working together with everyone else, that I feel like I’ve never been able to find in anything else that I do, and it’s always a really fun thing for me to do,” Poon said.
Boitz and Durban that this opportunity for extended international travel would allow students to learn and grow in a safe space with boundaries provided by teachers. However, it gives them the freedom to figure out how to feed themselves and make sure they get enough rest without guidance from adults.
“We have the music things that we do, but this is also just growing your life education,” Durbin said.
Liam Lenh, a senior who plays violin in the orchestra, said he was looking forward to a cultural exchange with the Japanese students. In line with this, the students will be playing both songs by Japanese composers and some quintessential American pieces, like “Appalachian Spring” by Aaron Copeland and songs composed by Grammy-nominated composer Carlos Simon. Simon’s pieces incorporate elements of blues and jazz and a shout choir, shedding light on the United States’ history of racism and slavery.
Boitz emphasized the importance of performing at Hiroshima for their final concert and how he wanted students to tour the atomic bomb memorial. He said that the place was “sobering” and “extremely important for young people to experience” in light of the current political state, with words like “war” and “invasion” being tossed around flippantly.
“We try to bring the kids to as many things like that, cultural components that will be challenging to the kids but will also be memorable,” Boitz said. “We want them to go out in the world and to be leaders in whatever they do.”
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