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Yorkshire's Finest


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Kirklees Council, Agbrigg & Morley Wapentake, West Riding, Yorkshire, England, is proud to be sending its three drum and bugle corps to the shores of America for the third season in a row. Following last year's winning championship performance in Class A, all three corps will be taking up early residency within the state of Maine, and will be enjoying a full tour of 30+ performances across the eastern and mid-western states, in hopes of challenging for medals again this year. Under the direction of Colonel Eirik Bromley, Retd., West Yorkshire Regimental Drum & Bugle Division, the three corps are very proud of their shows this summer, all of which debut tonight, at the CLASS Championships, in Bowling Green Kentucky.

The Dewsbury Regulars:

Finishing 8th last season, the Regulars hope to challenge for a medal this summer, with their stirring show "OVER THERE!" about the Great War of 100 years ago. The pre-show begins with a small quartet of horns, shadowing two couples (Johnnie & Mary and Will & Anna) enjoying their small-town American summer day, listening to the latest hit on their Victrola: Nat Ayers' 1916 popular tune, "If You Were The Only Girl (in the World)" - a sense of America's isolation during the early years of the war. The rest of the corps enters to finish the song, as Brandt Crocker announces the corps to the appreciative crowd, and the applause fades to the sound of military snares and the call of British bugles (yes,real bugles) playing "Over There", from 1917 by George M. Cohan. The rest of the brass picks up the call, in contrasting and minor keys, as the war can no longer be ignored by the USA, and Johnnie and Will pick up their rifles, kiss their ladies farewell, and cross the sea with the American Expeditionary Force, the flags of the guard back home sending them off in patriotic reds, whites and blues.

Arriving to fight in France, the horrors of war are heard through the music of Heitor Villa-Lobos's Symphony #3 A Guerra ("The War") (1919) and Symphony #4 A Vitória ("The Victory") (1919), as many of the guard's flags back home transition to black in ones and twos. The scene ends in descending chords that so accurately depict the desolation, and Will is among the fallen, as Anna is forced to pick up a black flag. The smoke drifts over the quiet field to the the strains of Ralph Vaughan Williams' Symphony #3, movement 2, and a lone bugler now plays the mournful solo tune. Johnnie gets his gun, and the allies put an end to the war, from the stirring battle of the timpani to the victorious end of of Carl Nielsen's Symphony #4, The Inextinguishable (1916).

As Johnnie makes his way back to his small town, the beautiful end title music written by Elmer Bernstein for the film To Kill a Mockingbird, evokes both the sense of small-town America, and the loss of innocence it underwent, losing so many young men to the war. Mary, with her mellophone shadow, plays the solo melody down front, which gets picked up by Johnny and his trumpet shadow, arriving by train back field, then gets handed back to Mary. The music swells with the full corps, as townspeople start to notice his arrival and come up to welcome home the changed man. Anna, dressed all in back, joins him and they share an embrace of mourning. Then finally Mary notices him and runs into his arms, the rest of the town gathered about them, playing the final chords.

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The Huddersfield Hundred:



Finishing 2nd at least season's Open Class championship, a mere 0.03 behind the winner, the Hundred are looking to take it all this summer with a collection of tunes which will bring smiles to the faces of the crowd. The name of the show is easier read than said: ?



Remedying an absence from the repertoire of any existing DCI corps, the show starts with the rock song "Who Are You", composed by Pete Townsend of the Who, then answers the question "I AmThe Doctor", by Murray Gold, written for the Eleventh Doctor of the wonderful British television series, Doctor Who. We are able to explore the universe with the Doctor and his companions because "We Have All the Time in the World", the great song sung by Louis Armstrong and written by John Barry for the James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service. But as happens with all the companions of the Doctor, they eventually ask him to "Take Me Home", the rousing song by Phil Collins, during which refrains form the earlier tunes will make a return.



You can expect a lot of British iconography to make appearances in costuming and silks of the guard, as well as the drill, and maybe even a big blue prop.



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The Mirfield Lockmen

Last year’s Class A champions know how difficult it will be to repeat this season, but they hope their quintessentially American show will please the audiences across the USA: Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada

The show begins to the wailing licks of Louis Prima’s “Jump, Jive and Wail”, much as Prima began to reinvent himself in the early days of the Las Vegas scene in the mid 1950s. From there, the corps plays a swinging arrangement of the quintessential song of the city, “Luck Be a Lady”, by Frank Loesser, made famous by the ultimate Vegas performer, Frank Sinatra. Instead of a traditional ballad, the Lockmen want to evoke the essence of the Vegas scene, when you could hop from casino to casino and catch all the great performers of the day. They will be cross-playing between three stages, where you will hear "Danke Shoen", from Mr. Las Vegas himself, Wayne Newton, and “Beyond the Sea” by Bobby Darin, and “It’s Not Unusual” by Tom Jones. To cap off the evening, it wouldn’t be a show about Las Vegas without the one and only Elvis Pressley, and his “Viva Las Vegas”.

Instead of their traditional uniforms, the Lockmen will instead of recreating the look of Las Vegas from the golden age:

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Edited by Eleran
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Great show designs, fantastic posters!!

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