Seiler Rivers is a 2024/2025 Fulbright
Before embarking on my journey as a Fulbright ETA, I had studied classical piano in university. When I accepted the Fulbright, I knew I wanted to contribute to the musical life in my placement with a strong desire to better understand the people, culture, and history of the Czech Republic. But this proved to be a slower process than I expected. The months from August to November in my town of Mariánské Lázně were the longest I had ever spent without touching a piano or singing in choir. I dearly missed music, so when a colleague told me about a local choir in my town, I was eager to join.
After a few weeks of teaching, I arrived at the choir rehearsal on a cool September evening. Hesitating at the door, I watched all the other members file in, chatting away in Czech. I only offered small, very awkward smiles and felt painfully out of place. It was clear no one was expecting an American to show up that day. I lingered nervously in the hallway and texted my mentor that I probably made a mistake and might just leave. Then, by some miracle, a choir member who spoke English asked if I wanted to sing with them. I tentatively took a seat with the altos. I felt so very far from home as I sat in the rehearsal, only being able to communicate with one member. But then we began to sing. Finally, a language I was fluent in!
The words felt foreign but sweet on my tongue–melodies woven and sing-songy in a jovial way. The director conducted with passion, and the members joked with each other playfully. I did my best to speak in broken Czech (I had been making progress in the language!), and they offered positive feedback about my Czech pronunciation in the music.
During the break, they passed around wine and koláče, and I was struck by their generosity towards me, a stranger. They always made sure that my glass was full and I had something to eat. That night, I promised myself that no matter how awkward, how uncomfortable, or how much I didn’t understand, I would show up to that rehearsal every Sunday.
Photo: A Czech potluck included in every Sunday rehearsal, December 2024.
Slowly but surely, these Czech songs seeped into me. I caught myself singing them on walks around town, their melodies looping in my head long after rehearsal. What started in that choir room began to spill into every corner of my life.
Photo: Seiler accompanying the school’s Christmas recital, December 2024.
I danced to modern Czech songs with my students at prom and made a playlist of their favorites. At the English Department field day I led, I taught my students classic American line dances, and they showed me their traditional dance to a lively tune in return. I heard familiar melodies at the Christmas markets in Prague and started to hum along. I volunteered to play piano for my school’s Christmas concert where I sang “Vánoce, Vánoce!” (Christmas, Christmas!) with students in the hallway. As each new song I learned captured my heart, the Czech Republic began to feel more and more like home.
Photo: A festive Christmas market in Prague, November, 2024.
When the Christmas snow melted into the start of spring, I gathered with a few members of my choir in the local Irish pub to sing folk songs. My student Lucie also came with her guitar. We huddled over a black folder of Czech folk songs, joyously singing through them as the pub owner watched from the bar. In those moments, I felt less like a visitor and more like family.
I was happily impressed with the uninhibited way that everyone sang – loud and proud, with no embarrassment of the individual voice. After more wine was poured, one man would simply stick out his arm and bellow out a new tune. The others joined in easily, in beautiful, spontaneous harmony. It was unlike anything I had witnessed before.
Photo: Seiler and her fellow choir members singing in the local Irish pub, May 2024.
I picked a crowd favorite I was fairly sure they knew – Take Me Home, Country Roads by John Denver. Growing up in the American South, this tune was more than familiar, and I was delighted to find it was the same in the Czech Republic. Lucie and I sang it in English, then the rest of the choir picked up the next verse in Czech. I was so inspired by this experience that I created a country music lesson for my students that week. We spoke of the complicated history of country music in the American South and performed a lyrical analysis on Take me Home, Country Roads. My students reflected that Czech folk music and American country music are not all that different. Many songs reflect a love of the homeland and a sense of belonging to a place.
For our final choir concert, my choir director asked me to prepare some music from my home. The choice was easy: Georgia on My Mind by Ray Charles. During the concert, I performed it while accompanying myself on the piano, singing reflectively about my home. Of course, Georgia was on my mind. But in that moment, I was fully present with my choir, seeing the music stir something in them while I played. After the concert – with hugs, flowers, and a few tears – we moved to the Irish pub where they asked me to sing it again and again. The solo in the church had been special, but it meant so much more to sing it with the other members in the pub–guitar strumming, voices joined, the song no longer mine alone. Before our final goodbye, they placed a songbook in my hands, with only one request: that I promise to return it when I sing with them again one day.
My final musical memory of the Fulbright experience came on a school trip that I chaperoned to Český Krumlov during the last week of the grant. I had already said goodbye to my choir, but music followed me still. Canoeing down the Vltava River with my students, Lucie joyously suggested we sing “Country Roads” together one last time, recalling our classroom lesson together. I began, “Almost heaven….Czech Republic! Krásné mountains, Vltava river,” and my students giggled and sang along.
Why do we sing? Is it to be heard? No, surely not. It’s to participate in something larger than ourselves–to both contribute and to listen. This is what my year in the Czech Republic was like: learning to blend into a harmony that was already in progress. I came to Mariánské Lázně as a foreigner, not to be a soloist, but to commit to the long road of learning an unfamiliar culture and adding my voice where it belonged.
Even among language barriers, we all have some understanding of each other’s experiences and a desire to be pointed towards home. And in that moment, paddling down the river with my sweet students, their laughter echoing across the water, “Take me home, country roads” no longer meant Georgia. It meant home – my little Mariánské Lázně.
