Holland & Denmark

After two-and-a-half weeks off, I’m now once again on the road, and I’ll be back home at the end of December. It was great to be back home, catch up on sleep, see my friends, and start some new classical repertoire (which I’ve brought with me on the road so I can keep sharpening my classical chops!).

On August 8th, we arrived in Amsterdam, Holland, after spending numerous hours in the air. It was my first time being in Europe since 2003, so I had completely forgot what it felt like to be in a country where English is not the primary language. Needless to say, it’s quite a shock to the system. However, it made me realize how grateful I am that so many European educational systems require their students to learn English!

After arriving in Holland, we traveled by train to Alkmaar, a fairly small city about 40 minutes away from Amsterdam. Because we don’t really travel by train in Arizona (and on the west coast), it was a nice change of pace and it also gave us an opportunity to see quite a bit of the country. Holland, being surrounded quite a bit by water, is a very green country, where hills are covered in wildflowers and really tall trees. The city of Alkmaar itself is what I believe most people would imagine if they envisioned a small European town: the sidewalks are cobblestone, the buildings are brick, and the streets are incredibly narrow. Though our rooms at the Stad & Land hotel were really tiny, the accommodations were wonderful. Every morning’s breakfast consisted of freshly brewed (and incredibly delicious) coffee, really nice bread, and all sorts of fruit—thus far, amazing breakfasts have been a trend here in Europe. One of my favorite occurrences in Alkmaar was when we visited a local bar. As I discovered that night, many bars in Europe have espresso machines, which is fantastic for me since I don’t drink and I love coffee. The two lattes that I drank at that bar are probably the best lattes I’ve ever consumed. (On that note, the coffee here in Europe as a general rule is fantastic.)

Next to the hotel.

Sarah enjoys an incredibly large ice cream cone.

The best latte in the world.

In Alkmaar, we only played one show, which ironically took place in “Canada Square." It was a pretty neat place to perform as there was a really beautiful cathedral behind the stage, and it seemed as though the entire town was in attendance.

The poster from the festival (Barrage is on the poster).

After performing in Alkmaar, we took the train into Amsterdam, which is indeed quite the city! I would have liked to have had more time to see the sights (especially during the day) as there are a bunch of neat museums and such in Amsterdam, but it was nevertheless great getting to see the city for the short amount of time that we did.

People in Holland are big fans of the bicycle, as evidenced from the photo above.

The next morning, we packed up a large euro van and a Ford Focus and drove for about 10 hours to Silkeborg, Denmark, where we’re currently located. I rode in the Ford with Hidayat, Annette, and Andy, and it was really neat having Annette with us since a portion of the drive took us through Germany. Though we didn’t go through Annette’s hometown of Hannover, Annette was able to share quite a bit about the portion of Germany we saw—and her knowledge of German traffic laws was especially handy when we drove on the Autobahn! We stopped for dinner in Germany at a small restaurant off of the Autobahn, at which I experienced my first encounter with bees in a restaurant. As we walked up to the counter to order, we witnessed something at which the FDA would have most certainly scoffed: a swarm of about 20 bees enjoying the strawberry shortcake, the apple pie, and basically every plate of pre-made food. I also witnessed bees enjoying the Coke faucet at the soda fountain. At this point it would probably be good to note that I’ve never been stung by bees or wasps, and I’d very much like to keep it that way. The strangest thing was that neither the patrons nor the workers in the restaurant seemed particularly annoyed by, or even aware of, the bees’ presence. I suppose it must be standard to see bees in restaurants? Or maybe nobody cares? Either way, it was an odd experience.


We arrived in Denmark late that night at the Performers House, which is an incredible facility. The Performers House is the home for the Institute of Performing Arts in Denmark, a boarding school for arts students in Denmark. The staff here at the PH could not be nicer, and has basically given us free-reign within their facilities. Moreover, the kitchen staff has been preparing wonderful breakfasts and lunches each day, the quality of which is extremely high. The PH is located in Silkeborg as part of the Papirfabrikken, an arts/shopping district-of-sorts centered around a really old paper mill here in Silkeborg. I’ve had various people mention to me that Denmark is considered to be the “happiest country in the world,” and that has certainly been reflected by all of our encounters with the Danish. On a biological note, another interesting thing is that blonde hair (which is caused by a recessive gene) is found on the head of nearly everyone here.

The Performers House (our housing here in Denmark).

The building in which we rehearse.

The river in Silkeborg, near the Performers House.

While here in Denmark, our mission has been two-fold: rehearse and finish integrating both myself and Annette into the show, and perform in the town festival. We’ve been rehearsing in a black box theatre owned by the PH. It has been the perfect space in which to rehearse, giving us adequate room to learn the full choreography for the show (if we’re performing at festivals where we’re not playing on large stages, we frequently have to simplify/adapt the choreography to fit the stage). In the mornings, we do choreography rehearsals with Matt, and then in the afternoon we do music rehearsals with John (one of the Barrage managers). Since we’ve finished playing our shows at the music festival, the next few days will be spent cleaning up choreography and running “High Strung,” the current Barrage show.

Our rehearsal space.

Enjoying dinner backstage.

Alicia playing backstage with a child of two crew members.

It’s been quite exhausting training all day long and then performing in the evening, but I’ve finally finished learning the choreography for all of the Barrage music (except for some of the Christmas tunes which we’ll choreography later this fall)—and now, I’m officially fully trained! Matt performed his “final” show two nights ago, but will be returning again in October to perform in New Zealand as well as later in the year for various things. But with those exceptions, I’m now fully integrated into the group.

Performing here in Silkeborg has been a pretty neat experience, especially since this festival only happens once every three years. We’ve been the opening band every night on the main stage, which has been awesome because the audiences are incredibly large. One of the performers for whom we opened was Stig Rossen, an immensely popular Danish singer. Stig is an incredibly talented singer and is best known for performing the role of Jean Valjean in “Les Miserables” nearly 1400 times in 7 different countries. This December, we’ll be doing our Christmas tour with Stig all over Denmark, where we’ll perform not only by ourselves, but also with Stig. He will also be a guest artist on the Barrage Christmas CD, which is tentatively due out this fall. I’m quite excited to come back to Denmark for the Christmas tour, as it should be a really exciting one!

We leave Denmark on Wednesday morning to drive down to Chamonix, France, where we’re next scheduled to perform. After that we’ll be performing in Italy, and then we’ll be coming back to the US. It looks as though we’ll have three days off in Italy, so we’re hoping to do a bit of traveling while we’re there. Until then, here are some pictures that Matt took from the final show here in Silkeborg.