First Performance Of Scout House Anniversary Year Music

Preston Scout House Alumni Band, of Cambridge, will give the debut performance of the group’s 75th anniversary year field show music during the Ventures Winter Colour Guard show in Waterloo Collegiate Institute (WCI) on Saturday, March 9

Preston Scout House Cadets drum line will also perform during the indoor show, following the group’s first appearance during the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony’s Drums, Drums, Drums! family concert in January. The Alumni Band drum line also performed on stage during the concert.

The Ventures show begins at 6:30 pm at WCI, located at 300 Hazel Street, Waterloo. Tickets are $6 per person or $20 per family of four.

The guards featured in the show will be: Ontario Mass Winter Guards, featuring Prizim, St. John’s and Ventures; 2nd Generation Guard, presented by the Northstar Youth Organization; St. John’s Cadets Winter Guard; Ventures Cadet Winter Guard; Prizim Regional A Winter Guard; St. John’s A1 Winter Guard; Ventures A Guard. More information about the Ventures program is available at: http://www.venturesguard.org/

Scout House Alumni and the Ventures, who operated originally as a highly successful all girl drum and bugle corps, share a special bond in music arranger and teacher Dave MacKinnon. He was music director of the Ventures during the period the corps won five Drum Corps International (DC) world titles between 1972 and 1994. He now arranges music for Scout House Alumni Band.

During the show, MacKinnon will conduct Scout House playing his own arrangement of Through The Eyes of Love, the love theme from the movie Ice Castles. The song, the closing number in the 2013 field show, features a mellophone section solo, seven tempo changes and an extended 17-count ending.

The Scout House 2013 field show will open with an introduction to Memories: The Way We Were, arranged by the Band’s original music director and teacher John Conrad, followed by Waterloo Fanfare, which the Band has played in various arrangements since the mid-1950s.

MacKinnon has arranged all the other field show music: If My Friends Could See Me Now, Waltzing Matilda, Sing, Sing, Sing, Wayward Wind, Johnny One Note and the theme from Ice Castles.

The winter show on March 9 kicks off a schedule of more than 25 performances through spring, summer and late fall that will take Scout House Alumni Band to communities across Ontario, Pennsylvania, New York and Maryland, where the summer season winds up with the Drum Corps Associates (DCA) Alumni Spectacular field show concert in Navy Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis. The fall schedule already includes a tattoo organized by Royal Canadian Legion Preston Branch 126, a concert to salute the 60th anniversary of St. John’s of Brantford, Kitchener/Waterloo’s annual Oktoberfest parade and local Christmas parades in November.

The Spring Opening arena show on Sunday, April 28 will be Preston Scout House Alumni Band’s 400th performance since first appearing on stage at the Great Alliance of Seniors (GAS) reunion in Mississauga in the spring of 1999. The Spring Opening, offered free in recognition of the Band’s strong community support, will feature the full marching band, colour guard, drill team, Silver Leaves brass ensemble and Cadets drum line.

Since its first stage show in 1999, Scout House Alumni Band has performed in 397 parades, field shows and concerts in communities across Ontario and Quebec, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Florida, West Virginia and Maryland.

For more information about Preston Scout House Alumni Band, contact Activities Director Nancy Weiler at telephone (519) 653-3376, email prestonscouthouseband [dot] adm [at] sympatico [dot] ca or visit the Web site at http://www.scouthouseband.com/

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