Cadets 2013 Show announcement

[wvu80]

Sounds like so much going on. I hope they're successful with it. I love the "a little more angry"...we need more of that from Cadets. No CHRISTMAS HAPPY MUSIC!

C'mon, man, Cadets 2000 was happy music! I loved the Christmas show, the music AND the theme. And the 2012 Blu-ray really makes the show come alive, MUCH better than all the low level stuff previously available on the VOD from FanNetwork. But I digress.

First of all, George Hopkins is the bomb. NO ONE in drum corps at his level has the communication and openness that GH has that involves the Hard Core fan. There is no one else like him, he is one of a kind, and I applaud him for his openness.

Second of all, if I were to sit in on his staff meetings THINKING UP all this stuff, my contribution would be limited to sitting there in silence, dumbstruck with awe. The concepts are so far over my head, that's why I go to shows, to take in all that that is being offered. Most of us drum corps fans from the last century have always said that Medea lost in '93 because it was so far ahead of it's time, and we have occasionally wondered if a show like that would be competitive in today's drum corps.

I guess we are about to find out.

Edited December 3, 2012 by wvu80

[Tim K]

This sounds as if it will be a more serious minded show for Cadets and similar to past successful shows of the corps. My guess is that it will fare better than some of their more whimsical shows such as "Toy Soldier" in 2010 and "12.25" of 2012.

Personally I enjoyed their departures of 2010 and 2012, 2010 more musically than visually. While I did not see them live in finals in 2010, I did see them about a week earlier and at Big, Live, and Loud. The Big, Live and Loud performance and the DVD seemed to lose steam. I think the same thing happened in 2012. Earlier in the season the show was really alive, and the recording from San Antonio is better than the download of semi's, at least in my opinion. I did see finals live and thought the show again lost steam between prelims, semi's, and finals. 2011's "Angels and Demons" caught fire as the season progressed. My conclusion: while all corps need as show that keeps the performers attentions and through the season, this may be especially the case with the Cadets who no doubt will face stiff competition next summer.

However, before 2012 gets panned too much in this thread--put the 2012 San Antonio MP3 download on your Christmas playlist. The arrangements really are great, better than a good deal of the commercial releases, and can get you in the mood, that is if the San Antonio download is the same as it was in July.

[MisterA]

I know a lot of negative things get said about Hopkins and his DCI politics, but you have to give the guy credit on this. Cadets seem to put out more media than any other corps, and seem to release more information about their shows quicker than most corps. This is one direction that I wish more corps would follow suit.

This show sounds like it has some real potential to be awesome. Cadets 2012 was not one of my favorite shows by any means, as musically I was not excited by the Christmas music. They performed the heck out of it, and possibly should have been in 3rd place(I think it could have gone either way) I know some corps haven't released much information, but this show sounds like it could potentiallly be a top 3 show, and who knows, maybe championship material. I think the toughest part is going to be selling Adagio, since SCV had one of the most amazing arrangements of it in 2000. 12 years out, and many people consider it the best ballad ever put on the field.

I am looking forward to seeing a show that not only kicks butt, but one I love to see and hear over and over. I think this is definitely a step in the right direction.

[N.E. Brigand]

I was interested to hear Hopkins say that Cadets like to program shows that the audience can understand in one viewing, because he realizes that a significant portion of the audience will only see the show once -- and he feels the judges should be able to grasp the concept in eleven minutes as well.

[jjeffeory]

Very Vanguard 99, not a bad thing.

..and SCV 2000 as well.

Cadets have a history of playing music that other corps have done well with. They seem to also do well with the music. It then comes down to comparing arrangements for me.

[jjeffeory]

Wow, I wonder if they will use the 1997 arrangement of Adagio that never made it to the field.

Didn't they also do something like that in 2005 with Medea, where it morphed into Liquid ( as in Liquid was based upon Medea)

Edited December 3, 2012 by jjeffeory

[Jeff Ream]

Sounds good!

Please George - don't wreck it with stupid, unnecessary audio clips again, OK?

my thought exactly

[N.E. Brigand]

I just hope there are no audio clips from Platoon. :ph34r:/>/>

Heh.

By the way, Hopkins remembered the date of Barber's death correctly as 1981, but not the year that Platoon appeared, wich was 1986 not 1984. No one could fault him for this, though as a film buff I noticed it right away. I was a bit young to properly appreciate that much-lauded movie when I saw it at the time. As regards Barber and Platoon, what comes to my mind now is a bit from the review of one of my favorite film critics, John Simon:

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The crude preciosity of the dialogue is echoed by Georges Delerue's abominably posturing score, which takes for its centerpiece an even soupier orchestration of Barber's Adagio for Strings, used for just about everything from rushing into battle to achieving existential epiphanies in the mud. This already stale piece of Barber's now joins the so-called Albinoni Adagio and Pachabel Canon as one of the cloacas of classical music.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Well, one man's trash is another man's treasure!

On another note, Hopkins has a valid point that twenty years since Star's second-place performance of Medea ought to be long enough to keep a new interpretation from being stale. (It is odd that he doesn't mention SCV's first-place performance of the Symphony No. 1, where the gap will be fourteen years -- not to mention SCV's Adagio, so well-remembered from 2000.) But his comparision to symphony orchestras playing the same piece many times over the years doesn't entirely apply here. A quick look at the Cleveland Orchestra's 2012-2013 schedule shows why: they're playing more than 70 different pieces this season (over 24 weeks, with more or less the same concert repeated three times in a week; this doesn't count their tours), and almost all of these individual works are longer than the Cadets' entire show will be! And while these three Barber pieces are getting another drum corps airing, there are probably at least a dozen worthy works by Barber alone that languish untouched (or have been given only unsatisfactory treatment), not to mention the entire output of other composers.

Not that I don't understand Hopkins's frustration! In theatre, it is not unheard of to be told by long-time subscribers how they wish the company wouldn't program a revival so soon after a play was first produced -- even when the gap has been twenty-five years or more.

Finally, since I have my John Simon books at hand, a note regarding "Medea" from his collection of music criticism:

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Probably the most spectacular piece on the CD* is the last one. In 1946, Barber did a dance score for Martha Graham based--unlike Copland's distinctively American Appalachian Spring, done for her in 1944--on the universally riveting Medea myth. First called The Serpent Heart, then musically and choreographically overhauled as Cave of the Heart (1947), it was further adapted by Barber into a seven-movement suite for enlarged orchestra called Medea--well-performed, incidentally, by Andrew Schenck and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (Koch International 7010). Still not satisfied, the perfectionist composer shortened it to a tone poem for very large orchestra, Medea's Meditation and Dance of Vengeance (1956). It later became [i.e., the title was changed to] Medea's Dance of Vengeance.

The music is tender at first, as Medea longs for her children (carried by placid, pastoral woodwinds), but builds with several repetitions from coolly melodious to awe-inspiring. This is the Medea theme that, from the outset, has a troubling undercurrent from the xylophone, as if a faucet were dripping ice water. The beautiful theme presently bursts upon us with arrogant majesty, suggesting Medea's boundless pride. There ensues a nasty scherzo, its syncopation profoundly unsettling; clearly, this is Medea betrayed, spoiling for vengeance. Next, a respite, as the sorceress coldly plots. But then wrath: the xylophone supplanted by timpani, followed by a tonitruant return of the Medea motif, with the syncopation more insolently clangorous, as trumpets and kettledrums dominate. Finally, frenzy: the Medea motif again, heightened by merciless drumrolls. The malign scherzo once more, this time reaching hysteria: pandemonium punctured by cymbal clashes hurtling into deathly silence.

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*The CD is Music of Samuel Barber (EMI 49463), with Leonard Slatkin leading the St. Louis symphony, which I think has the version of Medea's Dance of Vengeance that Hopkins recommended.

So... since Medea's vengeance against her husband is to kill her own children, do you think Cadets will bring back L'il Geoffrey and do him in? (Some fans might cheer!)

(edited to fix typo)

Edited December 3, 2012 by N.E. Brigand

[RockyGranite]

Didn't they also do something like that in 2005 with Medea, where it morphed into Liquid ( as in Liquid was based upon Medea)

I haven't heard Liquid and don't really know the history of it, but I remember someone commenting in a thread that Liquid was based on some Eric Whitacre music.

[jaylogan]

Didn't they also do something like that in 2005 with Medea, where it morphed into Liquid ( as in Liquid was based upon Medea)

Yes, I remember Mr. Hopkins saying something to the effect that the last piece of The Zone was intended to be something Medea-like in nature.