South Milwaukee music students offering private concerts to pay for trip to Nashville

South Milwaukee High School's choir, band and orchestra students are looking to raise funds for a trip to Nashville, Tennessee, next spring.

How so? Partly by offering private concerts.

If a participant donates $1,000 toward the group's trip via the South Milwaukee Music Parents Association, they can choose from one of five opportunities to hear music from the students and Aimee Swanson, South Milwaukee High School's choir and general music teacher and director of the school's Apollo Jazz Choir.

The group or Swanson will then come to the donor's house and perform a concert.

Two of the concerts up for bidding are backyard performances by the school's vocalist group, Apollo Jazz Choir, two concerts are performances by the school's Jazz Combo, an instrumental group, and one is a personal concert by Swanson herself, according to the fundraiser website . The bidding is open until Aug. 7 at 8 p.m.

Sarah Brooks, the president of the South Milwaukee Music Parents Association, said the group had taken music students on a day trip to Chicago in May 2023 and wanted to plan a larger trip to Nashville for next spring, scheduled for March 24-27, 2025.

While money has already been raised for the trip, the group is looking to raise more funds to ensure more students who might not be able to afford the trip have an opportunity to go.

"We don't want any student to feel like 'well I can't go because I can't afford it.' So we're a doing a lot of different fundraising things, both music parents and the kids doing their own fundraising," Sarah Brooks said.

A previous fundraiser last December through the online fundraising platform SnapRaise! raised about $12,000. Some of the funds from that fundraiser will also be put towards the trip, according to Erik Brooks.

Future fundraisers include students selling candy bars and singing individually and in pairs at the South Milwaukee's Farmer's Market Aug. 8 or 15. At the market, donations will be accepted both in cash and through a QR code. Students had also performed at the market earlier this summer and collected donations. The Apollo Jazz Combo performed at Summerfest this year as well, Sarah Brooks said.

Swanson said at a South Milwaukee Music Parents Association meeting earlier this year that a colleague at her former school district, Lake Geneva, also played in the Lake Geneva Symphony Orchestra. She said her colleague asked her if she could donate voice lessons or playing the piano. She had played private concerts in the past, such as during cocktail hour at a wedding and a Christmas concert at someone's home, that people bid on as part of silent auctions.

When asked by Erik Brooks, former South Milwaukee mayor and Sarah Brooks' husband, if she'd be willing to play a private concert, Swanson said she would.

Then the idea came up of having the Apollo Jazz or the South Milwaukee High School Jazz Combo perform outdoor concerts on porch steps, which came from a discussion about porch concerts happening during the pandemic. Swanson credited Erik Brooks for taking the ideas and bringing them together.

Erik Brooks said the idea is a continuation of momentum gained after a successful gala event called "Jazz and More" that was held in April at the Bucyrus Club in South Milwaukee that he said raised over $7,000.

"For that donation, you'll get a really special evening in your backyard or on your front porch or probably in your family room if you really wanted to. It's an opportunity for the kids to show off what they can do and raise money for their trip to Nashville," Erik Brooks said.

What the Nashville trip will entail

The trip to Nashville will include stops at the National Museum of African American Music, where choir students will possibly perform; the Grand Ole Opry, where the group will do an outdoor performance, take a backstage tour and watch a show; Fisk University, for a tour and choir clinic; Vanderbilt University, for a band and orchestra clinic; and Centennial Park. Fisk University is home of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, which performs spirituals "originally sung by slaves prior to the Civil War," according to the singing group's website .

The group will also get to see the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum and possibly tour RCA Studio B there, tour the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center, go on a walking ghost tour of Nashville, take line dancing lessons and possibly tour Andrew Jackson's Hermitage, the home of the seventh U.S. president.

Contact Alec Johnson at (262) 875-9469 or alec.johnson@jrn.com . Follow him on Twitter at @AlecJohnson12 .

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: South Milwaukee music students offering private concerts to pay for trip to Nashville