5,348 miles away is the city of Würzburg, Germany, the city where junior Vincent McClure is originally from, arriving in August. McClure came to the decision to spend a year in the United States and will be returning to Germany at the end of the school year.
The decision to go to Texas was somewhat impulsive, with the opportunity available, he took it, now living with his grandparents.
“I had the opportunity to because I have citizenship here,” McClure said. “I just decided to spend a year here because I thought it was pretty cool.”
Living in Texas for the past six months, McClure notices some differences between the schools in Germany and the United States.
“It’s been cool to have, we have a lot bigger schools here,” McClure said. “All the extra curricular stuff is way bigger, the choir there was way [worse], because here you have so many more people that are really good choir students. So yeah, that’s been way more fun.”
Besides the size of the school, McClure sees a lot of other big differences, like the length of the school day and the freedom each student gets.
“I guess it’s way more free here in the school, whereas in Germany, you have the set classes that you have to do in order to graduate and here you have this wide variety of different classes you can take,” McClure said. “I get out a lot earlier in Germany, so I have a lot more free time. So all in all, I’d say I prefer it there, but some aspects are definitely better here as well.”
In his free time, McClure likes to dedicate his time to music, playing the guitar and piano. Recently performing at Coffeehouse, a school event, he sang “Something in the Orange” by Zach Bryan.
“I don’t really perform to perform, I sang the song like I would in private and that’s the way it is for me,” McClure said. “If people want to listen, that’s pretty cool, but I don’t perform to perform. I just perform because I play anyway and if people want to listen, then there you go.”
Joining the choir is McClure’s favorite part of attending McNeil, often spending his time in the practice rooms and socializing with peers.
“Before I came here, I was never in the choir, just because there was never really an opportunity to do so,” McClure said. “Starting from the fact that it was advertised everywhere and it was so accessible, I got in choir and everybody’s really supportive, which makes the experience really easy and I learned lots of stuff.”
Because McClure came with a lot of knowledge, he did not have to start in the first year choir, starting in the varsity tenor-bass class.
“He is a fantastic musician,” Choir director Wendi Burwinkel said. “He’s already a singer, so he came in with a lot of background knowledge already about music and how to be a good musician and then, of course, a great work ethic.”
Burwinkel believes it takes a unique kind of person to transfer themselves for an entire year, temporarily leaving their old life behind and getting surrounded by an entirely new environment.
“It already takes a special breed of kid to be able to do that with bravery and then just to dive in and take the opportunity for every possible experience,” Burwinkel said. “Because you’re only here for one year. So what can you cram into that one year? And that’s kind of what he’s done, if there’s an opportunity for something, he does it.”
On top of McClure’s musical abilities, Burwinkel notices a lot of his leadership within the classroom, often seeing him practicing with peers.
“He’s fearless and he just wants to always be the best that he can possibly be, so he has very high expectations of himself, which brings a whole bunch of leadership into the classroom,” Burwinkel said. “He is such a great mentor. He’s constantly in the practice rooms and just the level of leadership and program excellence that he has brought in has been a game changer for his peers.”
Besides taking choir, McClure takes five AP classes including Chemistry, Physics, English, Psychology and Calculus. Burwinkel believes his intellect is very apparent in the classroom environment.
“He’s very intellectual, he asks a lot of deep, probing questions, he always wants to know, why? Why are you doing it this way? Why this? Why that?” Burwinkel said. “You hear about it all the time, the different education systems that are around the world and so some of those European education systems are just leaps ahead of where we are in the U.S. Then you see kids like Vincent. You’re like must be, because not only is he crazy smart, but then the way he learns and how quickly he adapts that’s clearly a sign of his environment as well.”
Burwinkel and the choir class don’t want to acknowledge the fact he will be leaving following this school year.
“We’re all ignoring the fact that he’s going back to Germany at the end of the year,” Burwinkel said. “They’re all getting ready to do auditions for next year’s ensembles and there’s a big sight reading component, where you have to sing something you’ve never seen before and it’s fairly challenging. So he’s not going to audition because he’s not going to be here, but he’s practicing with them and helping them get better so that they can have a better audition. That’s just who he is.”
For his future McClure still plans on returning to Germany in June and is currently deciding what he wants to pursue in the future.
“I’m trying to figure it out right now because I really want to study music, but I also want to make some money,” McClure said. “To reconcile those two things is gonna be pretty hard, so I’m thinking either I study music and just go for it, or I study like engineering and then have music as a side hobby as well.”
