Taking performance ensembles out on tours has been an Interlochen tradition since before Interlochen even began.

The first tour occurred in 1926 when Dr. Joseph E. Maddy assembled a group of talented high school musicians for the first National High School Orchestra, which traveled to Detroit to perform at the Music Supervisors National Conference. The second tour occurred the next year, when a similar group traveled to Dallas for the National Superintendents Conference.

The impetus for a permanent home for talented young musicians emerged from that Dallas performance, and Joe Maddy opened Interlochen - first called the National High School Orchestra Camp - the next year.

Maddy’s successors have continued to take students on the road. Students from the summer Camp and later the Interlochen Arts Academy have performed in venues including Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center, for presidents John F. Kennedy and Herbert Hoover, and at world’s fairs and expositions in New York City and Chicago.

As Interlochen’s arts offerings expanded, so too have the type of tours, with bands, dancers, writers, visual artists and theatre students all receiving opportunities to travel over the years. continued >>>