Nationally recognized drum and bugle corps marches into town
All-day rehearsal camp for the Seattle Cascades Drum & Bugle Corps has returned to Mount Angel and is making noise in the community.
For the second consecutive summer the national touring corps is marching on the John F. Kennedy fields and taking refuge in the school’s cafeteria in preparation for a 60-day Summer Music Games Tour beginning June 30.
The tour culminates Aug. 13 at the DCI World Championships in Foxboro, Mass. The Cascades will also compete locally at the Drums of Fire Summer Music Games in Woodburn July 6 and at the Portland Summer Music Games in Hillsboro July 8.
The Seattle Cascades landed themselves in Mount Angel coincidentally last year and couldn�t resist a return visit after such a welcoming stay.
“It’s really great to get the support of the community,” said corps member Gedy Bienvienu of Lafayette, La.
Last year several Mount Angel residents brought doughnuts, cookies and even aloe vera to sooth sunburned skin.
“They let us in with open arms,” Bienvienu said.
The sleeping army of musicians awake at 8 a.m.; they are stretching by 9 a.m., and on the fields rehearsing by 10 a.m. During meal times band students rest under the shade of the dinning cart or a semi truck equipped with kitchen utensils and cooking wear. They run back and forth to the drink stations, the girls dressed in shorts and sports bras, the boys without shirts.
Spending 12-hour days under the hot sun and frequent rain showers, marching, note-taking and napping or doing laundry during down times may not sound like the best way to spend the summer. But for 135 band corps students, nothing could be better.
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The Seattle Cascades, a member of Drum Corps International, are the oldest nationally touring corps in the Pacific Northwest, each summer traveling 12,000 miles to multiple competitions.
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Founded in 1957, the corps hosts students ages 14 through 22, most of them music majors or students interested in the field, from all over the Pacific Northwest and a scattering of middle and eastern states.
The Seattle Cascades received placement as the 12th best drum and bugle corps in the world in 2002. This year they’re striving to again reach the top 12, and the corps is ahead of the game, already having learned the show.
“We’ve got the full show down, so now we only have to make it clean and make it all that much better,” said contra player Tom McClellan of Salem.
The 2005 corps features a program titled “The Airborne Symphony.” The show features brass arrangements by Dr. Tim Salzman, director of concert bands at the University of Washington, percussion arrangements by Rob Lewis, director of bands at East Valley High School in Spokane, and David Reeves, percussion instructor for the UW marching band. The corps director is Dr. Sal Leone of Shoreline, Wash.
