Empire Statesmen “Shuffle Off To Buffalo”
Members of Rochester’s Empire Statesmen will shuffle off to Buffalo the weekend of April 8 and 9 on the season’s first road trip, which includes a stop in LeRoy, NY for a benefit concert. The performance to support the LeRoy High School music program begins at 7 pm, Saturday April 8.
The school is located at 9300 South Street. Ticket information is available from Matt Nordhausen, at mnordhausen [at] leroycsd [dot] org.
The concert will include the Statesmen, the Empire Cadets and the LeRoy school bands. An earlier Statesmen benefit concert at East Rochester High School raised more than $2,500 to help finance school band trips this year. One of the highlights of the East Rochester concert was all the groups, the Statesmen, Empire Cadets and school bands, playing I Go Ro Rio together.
The Empire Statesmen and Empire Cadets will rehearse at LeRoy High School on Saturday from 11:30 am to 5 pm, when the LeRoy High School booster group will provide dinner. Following the concert, Empire Cadets, a youth marching band operated as a community outreach program by the Empire Statesmen, will return to Rochester, and the Empire Statesmen members will sleep on the gym floor in the school
The corps members will be on the road to Buffalo Bills stadium, at 1 Bills Drive in Orchard Park, just west of Buffalo, by 7:30 am Sunday, so they will arrive at the indoor facility in time for breakfast at 8:30 am. The corps will rehearse from 9 am to 4 pm.
The LeRoy concert will include part of the Empire Statesmen’s 2006 field show. This year’s them is “Catching Some Rays,” featuring the music of Ray Charles. The Statesmen will play Georgia On My Mind and Unchain My Heart, two of his biggest hits, along with audience favorites from other years, including Elks Parade, I Go To Rio, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Night and Day, New York, New York and Birth of the Blues.
The Empire Statesmen, five-time Drum Corps Associates (DCA) world champions, regularly perform winter benefit concerts to help the schools and community groups raise funds for music programs. The Empire Statesmen have a long history of performing such concerts across western New York and as far away as Burlington, Ontario.
The Empire Statesmen’s 2006 outdoor contest season begins in June, and winds up in Rochester on Labor Day weekend with the DCA world championship tournament in Paetec Park Stadium. Empire Statesmen are the host corps for the three-event in the new downtown stadium.
The Empire Statesmen drum and bugle corps is a self-supporting independent group that represents the city of Rochester across the United States and Canada and as far abroad as Europe, the Caribbean and South America.
The Empire Statesmen are known for their high quality, entertaining performances on the contest field, concert stage and in street parades and other special events.
The Statesmen have won the DCA world championship title five times in the past 15 years: in 1991, 1994, 1997, 1998 and 2004. The corps also won the American Legion national title in 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2004.
In 1998, the Statesmen became the only drum corps in history to win the triple crown: the World Show Band Championship, with the highest score ever recorded in that contest, in London, England, the DCA title and the American Legion championship. The World Drum Corps Hall of Fame chose the Empire Statesmen as the senior corps of the decade for the 1990s.
More information about the Empire Statesmen winter rehearsal and performance schedule is available by calling (585) 266-2232 or visiting the Web site at: www.statesmen.org.
