Cedarville High band member Molly Thompson (left) embraces her mother, Pam, before boarding the charter bus to an airport in Detroit, and eventually to China. Toting luggage and backpacks, the group of 40 smiling Cedarville High School band members boarded a bus bound for Detroit Metropolitan Airport Monday morning, June 5, on a trip that will eventually land them in China.

Cedarville musicians will be performing for other young musicians, and meeting with them in workshops in a program viewed by the Chinese government as an opportunity to raise the quality of some band programs in Shanghai and Beijing.

The trip cost more than $100,000, which was raised with some help from the Chinese, an $80,000 anonymous donation, and fundraisers held by the Les Cheneaux Music Boosters, which also contributed new uniforms. Adult chaperones and parents are paying for their own trip.

The new uniforms arrived a week before the school's May 30 band concert, said Music Director Alan Jacobus, and were purchased because the students and Boosters thought the band's formal black dresses and tuxedo pants and long sleeved shirts would be too warm. The new uniforms are khaki pants and shortsleeved, green, collared shirts embroidered with Cedarville High School Band, China Trip 2006

Jerry Smith of Cedarville recites a blessing for the Cedarville High School band members and families before climbing on the bus to leave Cedarville for China. The group is expected to arrive in Beijing Wednesday, June 7. It will leave Shanghai Thursday, June 15 and arrive back in Detroit at 5:21 a.m. Friday morning, June 16.

Daily trip updates and photographs will be posted on the school's Web site (Google: Les Cheneaux Community Schools).

Over the course of the trip, the band will play 13 songs and musical pieces they have been rehearsing throughout the year. Mr. Jacobus said the students will play some sets that will last 40 to 45 minute, so the larger repertoire will give them more room and variety so they don't have to play the same songs wherever they go.

The band will play mostly American music, because the Chinese requested it, but it will sprinkle some Chinese pieces into the performances.

Forty young musicians and 20 adults pause while preparing to board a charter bus headed for Detroit Monday morning, June 5. In Detroit, the group took a plane to California, and then to China, where they will spend the next two weeks sightseeing and performing. The Cedarville students are also scheduled to present workshops and work with the Chinese music programs and staff. Students will participate in five exchange performances with local school bands, and the final performance of the trip will be on an outdoor stage. Sightseeing excursions will take them to the Great Wall of China, the Temple of Heaven, jade and silk factories, Beijing Children's Palace, Tiananmen Square, banquets, shopping, a cruise on the Huang Pu River, and the Forbidden City. Accommodates will be at hotels.