Slingerland

Great pickup for Regiment, and nice place for that team to be. Looking to see PR getting back into it sometime soon.

Very solid list. As to the original question, as noted, the FE book is a little basic compared to what’s being performed now. The battery book is fine, but perhaps not as textured as what the top 4 or 5 lines are running with today.

Agreed, but clearly some element of the recipe disappeared between 2019 and 2022, and the show this past summer was simply not well conceived or designed, with the exception of the percussion caption, where they did what they could. Probably unpopular opinion, I think they wasted an opportunity to do something really big and ballsy in 2021, to prep themselves for staying on the trajectory. Boston did that, and benefitted this year as a result. Oh well, hindsight etc etc.

Maybe, but a quick look at the recaps shows that they were 9th in brass at Finals. Is the change an upgrade? Arguably not, but the new guys have a 9th place finish as their benchmark, so anything better than that would argue a step up. That said, the arranging element of the brass caption(which is more important) is a step up in terms of proven track record, so at worst, it's a wash.

Because you're the one demanding that others do what you think they should do.

No, you really don't. When things are dire, you do triage. Vanguard A corps is what makes the organization run. The Cadet corps, as with most other orgs' cadet corps, is a program for other young people who aren't old enough or aren't able to march with the A corps, but in no real world setting would you say "ok, let's pull resources from our brand product and allocate them to another product that doesn't provide the same level of exposure.". But if alums want to get together and fund $500-700k to help staff up their Cadet corps for next year (though for a Cali only tour, unless the alums want to go bigger financially), it's likely their BOD would be happy to hear a proposal.

Perhaps their Board recognized that they were missing enough competent adults willing to do the work necessary to run the program according to their standards. Hiring everywhere is tough right now, especially in fields having to do with social service and education (and drum corps management encompasses both). If the reports from members are true, and they had substandard conditions, and the BOD is being truthful that the expense the syear was more than what they felt comfortable committing to for 2023, then wouldn't the prudent course of action be to (checks notes.....) put the program on hiatus until they have adults ready to run it and the funds to do it well? In other words, the thing they actually did?

BK staffing up to be Cavaliers semi-west.

Pandemic has been over for several months. We're in the endemic stage, at this point. Precautions will be advised for high risk environments, and hopefully the corps will be better prep'd next year for how to manage outbreaks. But it ain't gone...

Very different organizations in terms of resources (Plus there's literally no kid of marching age today who was alive when Madison was still considered a top-level corps - the last of those kids would have aged out of DCI ten years ago. Cavaliers are still considered an elite brand, despite their placement in 2022, so they've got a little more upwards pressure in terms of recruiting).

If Rosemont had been healthy, it wouldn't have fixed the problems of an incoherent concept and a remarkably poor visual design. Starting fresh in all of the captions who underperformed the talent of the corps was the necessary route. It'll likely get better, since it can't get much worse.

Saucedo's a proven talent as arranger and music lead. You wouldn't think he'd jump back in unless he was feeling the itch to do something new. They should be fine.

Gibbs is still very much involved at BD, regardless of titles. Of the others. Valenzuela is at BD, as noted, Coates’ influence at Crown will continue for awhile, and Glasgow’s wife is the COO of Bluecoats. Fiedler, Hopkins, and DeGrauwe are out of the activity as day to day players, at least (DeGrauwe is still on Cavaliers’ BOD, I believe).

Any one in this world is expected to at least, y'know, do a little background checking and employment verification, and if the answer to the question "are they eligible for re-hire?" comes back 'no', you'd expect that they'd figure stuff out. Unless they really don't want to know.

Impossible. He wanted to be friends with everyone.

Reportedly out at Mandarins, but he should land somewhere soon. He's been doing good work for a number of years.

Still on their site, still on social media, so not sure what you're (not) seeing.

I'd imagine that was the thought process in bringing in a new, younger staff to drive the caption and develop talent. Guard kids tend to go where the staff members are, much more than brass and percussion.

2003 should have won all the marbles, and it wasn't close. Probably the best overall program of the 2000-2006 period. He left after 2008, if I remember correctly, in part because it was rumored he also wasn't a fan of the horn staff's approach to dynamics. Hoping that there are enough makings from the strides made by the recent horn staff to give him and his team a solid foundation.

Hoping to see a more serious approach to music from Rosemont with these changes (they've been muddling with B-grade music for a number of years now). Don't know much of anything about Starnes, but he seems to have been part of some pretty good teams in the past, so that's promising.

When you have that many people leaving, it's because they weren't necessarily enjoying each others' company, in whole or in parts. Thinking back, the fact that they showed up in Detroit with an unfinished show and then, two weeks later, it still felt like a sophomore kid padding by talking circles during his oral book report, doesn't indicate that they were all on the same page way before the season started. The staffers will all be fine in their new homes (or in their non drum corps pursuits), The Cavaliers likely have some names lined up (or people primed to make a name, since everyone well-known now once wasn't), and it's still just band on grass.

Generally agreed. Hoping for much more interesting design choices from pretty much everyone next year.

The current CEO came on board in early summer 2019, had no competitive season to consider at all in 20 and 21, and had only this last summer to evaluate the work of the design staff. No one is disputing that the 2022 show was, to be kind, 'underwhelming', are they? Keeping the old team together as they were would have been much more worrisome than making the call that it's time to look for a new team to take the lead..

That's a good political phrase - "opening doors" is just a way of saying that no one could object based on the single-gender issue: it doesn't mean any additional funding has appeared or would necessarily appear. As for programming, Scouts are right now in the same generic mix as most of the non-finalists (maybe Academy is an exception) - without someone with a vision being in charge of programming, they're going to stay mired there for awhile, as the one thing they had to recruit with has been taken away.

Sometimes, but also "new opportunities", "new challenges", etc. There's a lot that goes into deciding to accept an offer, and designers and staff members are competitive too - they'll go where they think they have the opportunity to make a mark, and I never fault them for that, since the flip side is that failing to achieve is a short path to finding oneself looking for a new gig.