World Drum Corps Hall Of Fame Member John Arietano Passes
World Drum Corps Hall of Fame member John Arietano passed away in early December after struggling with cancer. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1996. He was also a member of the Buglers Hall of Fame, inducted in June, 2005.
He had been taking part in drum corps activities continuously since he began performing in the brass line of St. Helena Cadets in 1958.
He was the brass instructor and arranger for several junior and senior corps over the years, beginning with the Brooklyn, New York Riversiders junior corps in 1967 and extending to the Westshoremen in the mid 1990s. Other well-known corps he taught during that interval include Sacred Heart Crusaders, Belleville Black Knights, Long Island Sunrisers, Hawthorne Caballeros, and Connecticut Hurricanes.
Sunrisers won the Drum Corps Associates (DCA) world championship title four times while he was brass instructor: in 1977, 1978, 1982 and 1983. He taught Hawthorne Caballeros when that group won two consecutive DCA titles in 1984 and 1985. He was with Westshoremen in 1996, earning a seventh DCA title.
He had also been involved with a number of high school marching bands.
His formal music education includes earning an AAS Degree in Music Performance at Bronx Community College, a BA in Music at Queens College, and five years of private study in arranging, theory and technique. He played in many jazz and Latin big bands and combos, community orchestras, wind ensembles and several mummers groups. He won DCA’s best soloist award at the championship contest in Syracuse, New York in 2000.
The World Drum Corps Hall of Fame is a non-profit organization honoring those individuals who have contributed significantly over many years to the development and continuing excellence drum and bugle corps activity. The organization also seeks to preserve the history of the drum and bugle corps movement in North America by selecting a noteworthy junior and all age (senior) corps of the decade.
Regular World Drum Corps Hall of Fame members are honored for their dedication, contributions and achievements over a long period of time in categories including administration, arranging, adjudication, instruction, innovation and design. Associate members have dedicated at least five consecutive years of service to any drum and bugle corps as a performer or in a support role.
For more information about the World Drum Corps Hall of Fame visit the web site at http://www.worlddrumworlddrumcorpshof.org
