Big Sounds, Small Point Separation In Reading

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Rochester’s Empire Statesmen pulled within hailing distance of front-running Reading Buccaneers at the Big Sounds in Motion contest, in the final regular contest before the Drum Corps Associates (DCA) championship tournament on Labor Day weekend. Bucs finished in first place in front a hometown audience, with a score of 94.975. Empire Statesmen closed the gap considerably on August 26, finishing second with 94.163. The last time the two corps met on the field in late July, Bucs won with a score of 89.7, with Empire more than two points behind at 87.425.

In the Big Sounds in Motion contest, Empire and Bucs tied in effect total score, each with 38.10. Empire Statesmen were tops in the field percussion, ensemble brass and music effect captions.

Empire Statesmen have won four contests, and finished second to Bucs in five meetings since the season opened in June. The Buccaneers remain undefeated this season in eight contests. The two will meet for the final time this year in the DCA tournament in Rochester NY, sponsored by the Empire Statesmen. Reading Buccaneers are the defending DCA champions. Empire Statesmen, five-time DCA champions, finished second in last year’s championship tournament.

The DCA championship tournament takes place on Saturday September 2 and Sunday, September 3, in Rochester’s new downtown PAETEC Park Stadium. The prelims begin at 2 pm Saturday, with the finals being held Sunday evening. The Empire Statesmen will sponsor the three-day DCA Labor Day weekend championship tournament again in 2007.

Next weekend’s events begin on Friday, September 1 at 5:30 pm, with Individual and Ensemble (I and E) contests and an old-fashioned outdoor drum corps party on Main Street in downtown Rochester. A record number of about 200 entries will use five performance venues in the Riverside Convention Center, the adjacent Clarion Hotel and outdoors on Main Street. Admission is free for all I and E events.

The induction of seven new members into the World Drum Corps Hall of Fame will take place Saturday, September 2 during a luncheon ceremony at the downtown Crowne Plaza Hotel. A concert and field exhibition by nine top U.S. and Canadian alumni corps begins at 10 am Sunday in PAETEC Park Stadium, the new home of the Rochester Rhinos professional soccer team.

Audience members at this year’s preliminaries and alumni exhibition will be able to vote on a ballot in the DCA program to choose their favorite competing corps and their favorite three alumni corps. Results will be announced during the Sunday evening finals.

Nine of the 42 DCA championships from 1965 to 2005 have been held in Rochester: four from 1968 to 1971; four from 1973 to 1976 and one in 1996.

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. For ticket information about the DCA championships and other events on Labor Day weekend, call (585) 266-2232 or visit the Empire Statesmen Web site at: www.statesmen.org

Posted by on Monday, August 28th, 2006. Filed under DCA News.