Rochester Crusaders March Camp Review

A few days ago we received a letter from Tom Lizotte regarding the March 10th and 11th camp that he attended. Below is the letter.

"I had the great pleasure recently to do my first rehearsal with the Rochester Crusaders. New endeavors are always interesting, and I came away from that first camp very excited about the corps and the program.

What attracted me to the corps was the design team Gene O’Brien has assembled. So much of success in this idiom is in writing and programming. When I heard Mike Linton had hired Jim Prime and Paul Rennick to write, joining the team was a no-brainer.

Jimmer’s taste in literature is impeccable and I knew the writing would be wonderful. I have long admired Paul’s writing and had wanted to work with him. The program this year — all Russian music — is expertly written and music the audience will love. These writers are the best the activity has to offer.

It is so good to the working with Jimmer and his music again. He wrote for the Boston Crusaders in the early 1990s when I was brass caption head there and his arrangements were responsible for a lot of the success we had. Beyond that, he is one of the quality human beings in the activity; an artist of great musical and personal integrity.

Gene and Carol O’Brien are longtime and dear friends. That is another reason Rochester was attractive to me.

The members were superbly cooperative. The group plays well, and once we fill out the remaining few spots, we will be ready to roll. I am very confident this will be a year of great progress for the Crusaders."…Tom Lizotte

This just shows that this edition of The Rochester Crusaders are the real deal. Want to be a part? Check out our website or contact our recruiting director at brianwilt [at] rochestercrusaders [dot] org for more information.