Empire Statesmen Close Gap With Hawthorne At Kingston

Rochester’s Empire Statesmen took the high music composite score, sweeping the field brass, ensemble brass and ensemble percussion captions, and had the top score in music effect while closing the gap behind Hawthorne Caballeros to just 0.8 points in Kingston, New York’s March of Champions on August 11.

Statesmen finished a close second to the Cabs, with a score of 89.488. Cabs won with a score of 90.288, the same mark that undefeated Reading Buccaneers had the previous week in Binghamton, New York.

Bushwackers finished third in the March of Champions, with 86.413. Connecticut Hurricanes were fourth with 83.538, a full 10 points ahead of Sunrisers’ score of 73.475. White Sabers were sixth, with 67.150.

The Buccaneers, Cabs and Statesmen have finished in one-two-three order in their meetings this season. The three won’t meet again until the Drum Corps Associates (DCA) championship tournament on Labor Day weekend. The Bucs and Cabs will meet twice before then: in Scranton, Pennsylvania on August 18 and Reading, Pennsylvania on August 25. Buccaneers, still undefeated in 2007, did not compete on August 11.

Statesmen will have two more contests to tune up for the world championship tournament on September 1 and 2. On August 18, the Statesmen will compete in the Pageant of Drums, sponsored by Brigadiers, in Alliance Bank Stadium in Syracuse. In addition to the Statesmen, the Pageant, one of four DCA contests on August 18, features Fusion Core, Rochester Crusaders, White Sabers, Sunrisers and Brigadiers.

The Statesmen’s final contest before the DCA championship weekend will be Fanfare 2007 in West Haven, Connecticut on August 25. The Fanfare, sponsored by Connecticut Hurricanes, will feature Fusion Core, Sunrisers, Bushwackers, Hurricanes and Empire Statesmen.

The 2007 contest season winds up with Statesmen, five-time DCA world champions, sponsoring the DCA world championship tournament on Labor Day weekend in Rochester’s downtown PAETEC Park stadium.

The weekend schedule includes the popular Individual and Ensemble competition on Friday evening, August 31 in downtown Rochester, the 32nd annual banquet and induction ceremony of the World Drum Corps Hall of Fame, the DCA Class A and Open Class preliminaries beginning at 2 pm and running through the evening of Saturday, August 1, the Alumni Classic field show exhibition starting at 10 am on Sunday, September 2 and the DCA finals beginning at 5:30 pm on Sunday evening to determine the 2007 DCA world champions.

Ten of the 42 DCA championships from 1965 to 2006 have been held in Rochester: four from 1968 to 1971; four from 1973 to 1976; in 1996 and 2006. Ticket information about the 2007 championship weekend is available through the DCA website, at http://www.dcacorps.org/

The Empire Statesmen organization offers opportunities for involvement beyond participating as a performer or support staff volunteer in one of North America’s most popular drum and bugle corps. The Statesmen also operate the Empire Cadets marching band for area boys and girls as a community outreach program. Both groups regularly perform in winter concerts, at no cost to organizers, to help support various school and community music programs.

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 organization kicked off a major capital fund raising campaign during the 2006 DCA tournament. Funds will be used to support the operations of the Empire Statesmen and Empire Cadets and other charitable and education activities.

For information, call (585) 266-2232 or visit the Empire Statesmen Web site at: www.statesmen.org