Phila. Orchestra traveling with kids in tow

LUXEMBOURG - With expensive instruments to look after and the need for rest after a transatlantic flight, why would any Philadelphia Orchestra player want to add young children to the barely movable feast that is the 2015 tour of Europe?

For a half-dozen of them, it was a matter of taking home along with them, a better option than missing the tour. As the musicians deplaned Tuesday in Brussels and took buses to the first concert locale in Luxembourg, a handful of children were in tow, along with nannies and grandmothers.

Some are too young to understand just how well-traveled they are. "I like to see all the [in-flight] movies," 4-year-old Victoria Morales said when asked how she felt about accompanying her parents to China and Japan, and now Europe.

It's one time when she gets to stay up late. Really late. Treating juvenile jet lag is simple for her father, principal clarinetist Ricardo Morales: "Just keep them up so that when they sleep, they'll be on the local time."

Some parents prepared their children a week in advance of departure by putting them to bed earlier, more in sync with European time, which is six hours ahead of Philadelphia. Once everybody is acclimated, the kids will have plenty of young company - principal hornist Jennifer Montone is arriving with her two young sons, Max and Felix, and principal trumpet David Bilger with his son, Andreas.

But none is as seasoned as Victoria Morales. Thanks to so many Far East flights, she has "silver" status in the US Airways frequent-flier program - and that, during private travel, allows her parents to get out of paying extra baggage fees.

"Thank you, Victoria," says her courtly father.

On this first day in Europe, the girl was more interested in peering out at the panorama of Luxembourg - whose centuries-old walls embrace parts of the original city - from the eighth-floor dining room at the Sofitel Luxembourg.

Her 8-year-old cousin Isabel Morales, daughter of violinist Dara Morales, just got her first camera and used it nonstop during a walk through the old city.

"Bushes, leaves, any statue. . . . She was taking pictures every seven feet," said her grandmother Donna Burkholder, recently retired music director of St. Peter's Lutheran Church in Lancaster, along on the tour.

"I told her we'd never make it to dinner" if she didn't stop, said mom Dara.

Isabel's main tour priority - "see the Eiffel Tower" - means Paris (May 30-31) will probably be very slow-going.

Other families reported so-far-so-good in the days leading up to the first concert Thursday at the Luxembourg Philharmonie. Snags are to be expected on tour, especially with the extra kid stuff travel requires. In China, Ricardo Morales had to wait hours to retrieve the child's car seat he had checked when flying.

"We may regret it," said wary violist Rachel Ku, whose daughter, Esther, is a year old. But Ku has the help of her Princeton-based mother, Grace, and sister Anne. The decision in her music-centric family was simple: She couldn't be away from her daughter at that age, and her husband, conductor Thomas Hong, has an engagement in Sicily.

Violinist Amy Oshiro-Morales, wife of Ricardo, decided from the beginning Victoria was going to travel, not just on Philadelphia Orchestra tours, but on mom's engagements at the prestigious Saito Kinen Festival in Japan (recently renamed the Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival).

Maintaining a presence with two august institutions was a matter of professionalism, she says. Besides, Philadelphia Orchestra musicians lose income when they skip tours. Then again, three weeks in Europe can run as high as $8,000 for each additional family member, which is why some seek out less-expensive lodging than the orchestra books.

Given what fun these trips can be for children and parents, what happens when the kids are older and tours fall during the school year?

Said Ricardo Morales: "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."