The Lakeville North High School Chorale represented Minnesota this year in the 2009 American Celebration of Music in France, commemorating the 65th Anniversary of the D-Day Invasion. Here are some brief reflections of the trip from Paul Wigley, choral director:
The Lakeville North High School Chorale was extremely fortunate to tour Paris and Normandy during our spring break (which also happened to be Holy Week.) While I’m going to spare you all the details of the entire trip, I think you need to know about our time singing in Normandy – especially singing at the American Cemetery on Omaha Beach. We had just enjoyed three fabulous days in Paris, and had traveled to Normandy on our fourth day. We woke up the morning of our fifth day and proceeded to the Peace Museum in Caen. This was a very moving tribute to the events of D-Day, and in particular, a movie that used actual footage to chronicle the minute by minute events leading up to the actual landing at Omaha Beach. This movie footage was also remarkable in that it showed both the American and the German troops going through their preparations (the Germans thinking it was basically another day like any other.) We arrived at the cemetery about thirty minutes before we were to participate in a wreath laying ceremony and then sing. During those thirty minutes, I saw many of our students hugging each other, comforting each other – the significance of the American soldiers’ sacrifices had all of a sudden become very real to them.
Paul Wigley, Choral Director Lakeville North High School Lakeville, Minnesota