2015 DCA I & E Schedules

[DCP NewsFeed]

Whether you are scheduled to perform in Individual and Ensemble (I&E) events this weekend in Rochester, or you just want to watch the greatness, please see the attached schedules. Read the rest of the article here.

... Read the rest of the article here - http://www.drumcorpsplanet.com/2015/09/2015-dca-i-e-schedules/

[Walk There Alive]

No listing of exactly where the I&E is located? Not on the FB page, not on the website.

Anyone know?

I have a friend that's there and is looking for it; he's never been there and doesn't have the address and can't find it anywhere on-line. I couldn't either. I'm not in Rochester, else I'd say it's somewhere near that Dinosaur restaurant.

[trptmagnet]

Unless things have changed, I was going to say "Clarion".

Now that went thru a name change to Radisson Hotel Rochester Riverside.

So it is there and across the street:

Rochester Riverside Convention Center 123 East Main Street Rochester

and it is in the street as well - a great event!

Hotel ADDRESS:

120 East Main Street

Rochester

NY

14604

United States

LAUNCH MAP

GPS Coordinates:

LAT: 43.156729

LONG: -77.60986

[ErieSopMike]

Any results?

[smj02]

Did not record the scores, but MiniCorps placements were as follows:

1. Star United

2. Freelancers

3. Ghost Riders

4. Minne Brass

5. Bridgemen

6. Brig Juice

7. Rocketeers

8. Steel City Ambassadors

There was quite a bit of surprise when Ghost Riders were announced in third.

Bridgemen won the fan text vote award.

Complete results are posted: http://dcacorps.org/?p=4427

Edited September 5, 2015 by smj02

[N.E. Brigand]

Did not record the scores, but MiniCorps placements were as follows:

1. 98.500 Star United

2. 95.500 Freelancers

3. 93.833 Ghost Riders

4. 91.500 Minne Brass

5. 87.333 Bridgemen

6. 86.500 Brig Juice

7. 84.000 Rocketeers

8. 83.1675 Steel City Ambassadors

There was quite a bit of surprise when Ghost Riders were announced in third.

Bridgemen won the fan text vote award.

Complete results are posted: http://dcacorps.org/?p=4427

(I've added the scores to your quoted post here.)

I was certainly surprised when Ghost Riders were announced in third . . .

. . . because I thought they'd place fourth.

That would really have caused a stir.

I sit just now in the business services center of the Radisson because I realized, three hours into my drive to Rochester, that my laptop was still sitting in my bedroom at home. Behind me at the bar when I came over, Star United was enjoying some well-deserved refreshments.

My picks for #1 and #8 matched the judges, and I put the same four corps in the top half of scores and in the bottom half of scores as the judges did, but beyond that our opinions differed. This is what I felt should happen:

1. 97.0 -- Star United

2. 94.5 -- Minne Brass

3. 94.0 -- Freelancers

4. 92.5 -- Ghost Riders

5. 87.0 -- Brig Juice

6. 85.0 -- Rocketeers

7. 81.0 -- Bridgemen

8. 77.0 -- Steel City Ambassadors

I couldn't get out of work until mid-afternoon, plus before stopping home to grab (and forget) my things, I needed to get an oil change in anticipation of driving 250 miles each way, so I only arrived in Rochester at ten minutes before nine, and only got into the ballroom as Fran was telling Brig Juice they could start their performance. I stood along the back wall until they were done, and when they were done, I found a seat about halfway back, just in front of the aisle, about as far left as that edge of the stage.

So I missed the title of the Brig Juice show. Does anyone know: was there one? And can you confirm the pieces they played? The first was a driving jazz number that I believe the Brigadiers played in one of their championship shows. Could it have been the Channel One Suite? I know it's drum corps heresy not to know that piece, but I started following corps only after the heyday of that work. The second piece was certainly "Harlem Nocturne" and the third was "Mercy Mercy Mercy", so Channel One would make sense as their opener, because they'd be recreating their 1999 championship show. I think that like the Thunderbirds last year, Brig's score suffered for going on first--although they were notably better than the '14 T-birds had been. Brig Juice made a number of small mistakes, sure, but if not for their closer being a significant step down from the rest of their show, I'd have put them close to 90. Up to that point, it was a grooving, entertaining show. I counted 21 horns and a percussionist, plus the conductor. I don't recall any drill, just some shifts in staging.

Fran announced a title for Steel City Ambassadors' show, but I couldn't quite make it out. It sounded like "The Second Corps". Their repertoire was two pieces I'd never heard of before (although I liked both), called "Western One-Step" and "Heaven's Light" (Fran announced the composers but I didn't catch the names), plus Shostakovich's "Galop". This was a difficult, ambitious show that seemed a bit too much for the corps. Lots of tricky rhythms, varying dynamics, difficult balances, but enough of the music came across to at least make the pieces conceptually clear--clear enough to see the scope of the challenges. I counted 11 horns and 2 percussionists, plus the conductor. There was some playful choreography attempted during the "Galop". I believe Madison Scouts included that piece in their 2000 show; it's delightful and I wouldn't mind seeing a field corps attempt it again.

The Bridgemen, initially introduced by Fran as "the bananas from Bayonne" (with 21 horns and three percussionists, plus the conductor, by my count), possibly suffered in my eyes for being too familiar. I don't believe their show was titled, but it was said to commemorate their 50th anniversary. Opening with a brief medley that included "I Love New York" and "New York New York" (from On the Town), they then played "Birdland", the theme from The Summer of '42, and the William Tell Overture. I thought the trap set was not quite with the horns for much of "Birdland". Summer of '42 was pretty enough (though with too much edge on that tuba at the end, in my opinion). And much of their arrangement of William Tell is so watered down from the original--which as the evening would go on to show, need not happen in drum corps. Only near the end of the piece was the brass really pushed. Overall, this seemed like a much easier show than those from the previous two corps, and while they did pretty well engaging the audience (thus the fan award), the trademark Bridgemen sense of humor was generally absent.

Rocketeers did bring some playfulness to their show, "A Child at Heart", which featured three songs: the theme from Sesame Street (with variations), "God Bless the Child", and "The Land of Make Believe". One member was pulled onto the stage in a child's wagon, others had various toys, and as the show started, they were jumping rope and playing other games. Later there was a scooter, some juggling, and one corps member blowing bubbles (I guess there's no penalty for the residue in Mini Corps). As fun as that was, they might have been better cutting it back in favor of more rehearsal. The arrangements were interesting and the playing was engaging enough, but there was a lot of exposure for such a small group (11 horns, one percussionist, and the conductor), who were not always up to the challenge: see the muddiness when the two trumpet players manipulated each other's keys in "Make Believe". But often they were doing what they should, and I would praise in particular the horn soloist in "God Bless". I wasn't quite sure what was happening right before the very end, when the drummer pulled off his top to reveal a black Batman tee shirt beneath.

Last year, I felt the Freelancers were over-scored. This year I had no doubt that their production, apparently untitled but featuring "Tiger of San Pedro", "Diego's Goodbye" (from The Mask of Zorro), and a Chuck Mangione piece whose title I didn't quite catch (skimming Corps Reps, my guess is "Echano" from Children of Sanchez), deserved to be in the top three. They hit the mark that Brig Juice and Bridgemen were aiming for: populist entertainment on a large scale (I counted 23 horns, two percussionists, and the conductor). This seemed like the show that most impressed the audience, and Freelancers were the audience text winner last year, so it was quite surprising to me that Bridgemen claimed that accolade this year. There was no drill, but there was much very helpful staging: moving the right people into focus at the right time. Their high brass especially was fantastic, offering one fine solo after another, and delivering a huge bright sound as a group. Their low brass, though good, was not as impressive, and the bari solo at the start of the closer wasn't loud enough. Near the end, there was a really cool section where a great trumpet solo was perfectly matched against some crescendos and decrescendos from the rest of the brass, partly generated through horn movement. Hey, Fran: were you cued in advance as to the false ending? I couldn't tell, but it almost looked like the Freelancers hadn't expected the audience to assume they were done so soon.

In my opinion, Minne Brass, with a show titled "The Music of the Hornheads" (which, Fran explained, is a Minneapolis band that originally formed to work with Prince; I had to do a little digging around the internet just now, since I wrote the name down as "Horn Hens"), was just as good, albeit with a completely different approach. This should be the model for all the truly mini mini corps, like Steel City and Rocketeers: with just 10 horns and one percussionist (the latter perhaps utilized too little), they had a huge, full sound that at times rivaled the full-size mini corps. It never felt thin. Their songs were "Head Case", "Waltz for Horns" (had trouble with my handwriting: thought this was "Waltz on Mars"), "How Will I Know", and "Interrupting Cow". Minne Brass were as well staged as the Freelancers, nearly as playful as the Rocketeers, and with astonishing brass technique, which they show off right at the start. Last year this corps impressed me, this year they were stronger still, holding my interest completely right to the nifty end, in which a series of solos were accompanied by the other horns tapping through their mouthpieces. The only flaw might be a slight feel of the clinical, which perhaps explains what astonished me: how uninterested the audience generally seemed to be. A real shame.

Ghost Riders were clearly not at their level of the past two years, in my opinion, and I was relieved that the judges agreed with me that far. Their show, titled "20", commemorates their unmatchable string of appearances in DCA's mini corps competition. It opens with a medley of movie themes, continues with Ticheli's "American Elegy" (I'm not sure it was a good idea to have Fran note that this was written in honor of the Columbine victims--bit of a downer in this context), and concluded with the William Tell Overture. Let's start with the last item, which was a high point of the evening: Bridgemen, this is how you do William Tell. The writing very nearly matches the difficulty of the source, and the playing was largely good enough to bring it off. It seems the Riders put their greatest attention here (Donny said to the corps before they started the piece, "This is the one"), and kudos for that achievement. If only the rest of the show was as good, but there was a lot of muddy tongues and fingers, to my ears, and many challenges with balance. It's nice that Star is not the only mini corps to incorporate a lot of drill, but for this performance, that effect seemed to me to come at the expense of the musical execution, and--BRASSO take note--the corps' score (I guess) suffered accordingly. Still, it was a more than worthwhile show that surely deserved its "box five" score.

I thought Star United's 10th anniversary show, featuring Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5, "Fire of Eternal Glory", and "Festive Overture", although certainly the best production of the evening, was less impressive than Ghost Riders' show of 2014, which is why I only scored Star at 97. That said, I would not be surprised to find that it was their most difficult show ever. (I haven't seen them all.) They appear to have put so much effort into simply mastering the technical challenges of the production that they never really make it sing. I don't mean that their 21 horns and four percussionists (plus one drum major, who was enjoying, if I heard correctly, anisette with orange juice when I left the bar; I don't drink: is that possible?) didn't generate their usual exemplary sound. Love those four tubas! I mean just that they were missing a level of emotional interpretation that they've often had before. Like Ghost Riders, they weren't at the top of the game--but they were closer. If there's one moment in particular to emphasize, it's when one trumpet is trading the melody with the rest of the corps in the symphony, a sort of game of musical catch (or maybe it should be called concerto-like).

I don't know if the audience was better behaved this year, or if I benefitted from being farther forward and to the left, away from the crowd in the back, but that noise was less for me. I did notice people walking in and finding their seats a few times during performances, and one of those in particular said to his companion, right behind me during Rocketeers' show, "Joe, how about this seat?" And then they tried to pull out some seats from the row as the corps was playing. Who does that?

[Cathie Wiener]

Thank you so much for taking the time to write out your thoughts on the show. I know the performers love to read reviews and it's really nice to read about the performances for those of us that couldn't be there.

[N.E. Brigand]

My pleasure. Usually I don't have the wherewithal to organize my thoughts into anything sensible.

[N.E. Brigand]

One more thing: I thought Fran would be amused, when I went up to say hello after he announced the mini corps show, to hear me say that I was wearing a Hawaiian shirt in his honor. But it seemed not!

[bmarsman]

Thanks for the comments about Brig Juice. The title of the show was "On the Town with Buddy and Mel" and it was a re-creation of the Brigadiers 1999 show.Yeah, we wished we had another rehearsal or two to shore up the last tune. We began rehearsing on May 31st and ran out of time.

Brig Juice is made up primarily of Brigadiers Alumni and we did have 3 members who competed in the 1999 show. It was a thrill to play it and we are looking forward to next year.

Thanks again!