Ballakermeen Head Teacher Adrienne Burnett is leading a party of 23 students and 6 staff on a cultural visit to Bayreuth in Germany. The group includes the boys’ choir ‘Otto’, and students who are learning German at GCSE and Advanced levels, who will have the opportunity to further develop their language skills. The choir have enjoyed considerable local success, and will be entertaining an audience of 2000 in the ‘Stadthalle’ concert venue.
Ballakermeen High School has established a partnership with the Markgrafin-Wilhelmine Grammar School, a day and boarding school with 750 students. It was founded in 1896 and named after Princess Wilhelmine of Prussia, a German composer who married the Margrave of Bayreuth. The school is highly respected in the region for its specialism in music and languages. It has many choirs and orchestras as well as a large band and is a school with an excellent academic reputation.
Bayreuth is famous for music, in particular for its annual Richard Wagner festival. At the same time it is a modern university town, surrounded by stunning countryside which offers the potential for many outdoor activities which are included in the programme. All students will also be visiting places of interest in the region, including Nuremberg and Franconian Switzerland National Park.
Mrs Burnett said: ‘We are very much looking forward to the first of what we hope will be many cultural visits to our partner school, the Markgrafin-Wilhelmine Grammar School in Bayreuth. It is important to establish links with different countries to enrich the curriculum experience for our students and to increase the number of opportunities for them to visit friends, and maybe even work abroad in the future. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Arts Council, the Golden Jubilee Trust and three private benefactors for the generous support given to ‘Otto’, our boys’ choir, who we are sure will be a credit to the school and to the Isle of Man when they perform on stage in Bayreuth.’
Photo - 'Otto' Ballakermeen boys’ choir.
