Cadets 2018

[BRASSO]

55 minutes ago, Crown Phan said:

Hop needs to step aside. That much is certain.

 All good things come to those that wait.

[Jeffe77]

My understanding from what I heard, is that Tom Aungst would take over the reins from Hop down the line, hence why he came back.

[craiga]

Now that the season is over.....as a Boston fan who had a horn player from my high school band in the Cadets....the kids worked their butts off and learned a ton of valuable life lessons this summer, however:

1. Too much cheese in the show, and the overly religious in your face references made a lot of people squirm

2. They would have scored at least a full point better had they used the classic Cadets uniforms, since that "look" has been associated with EXCELLENCE for an entire generation

3. The robes DID mask marching excellence which therefore could not be credited while at the same time obscured form accuracy and set definition

4. Lastly, when Hop infamously proclaimed several years ago during the dreaded powerpoint presentation that "lower scoring" corps "bring no value" to the activity....perhaps time to reconsider the abject arrogance of that statement, George?

 

 

[fsthnds]

3 hours ago, craiga said:

Now that the season is over.....as a Boston fan who had a horn player from my high school band in the Cadets....the kids worked their butts off and learned a ton of valuable life lessons this summer, however:

1. Too much cheese in the show, and the overly religious in your face references made a lot of people squirm

2. They would have scored at least a full point better had they used the classic Cadets uniforms, since that "look" has been associated with EXCELLENCE for an entire generation

3. The robes DID mask marching excellence which therefore could not be credited while at the same time obscured form accuracy and set definition

4. Lastly, when Hop infamously proclaimed several years ago during the dreaded powerpoint presentation that "lower scoring" corps "bring no value" to the activity....perhaps time to reconsider the abject arrogance of that statement, George?

 

 

I felt all year that #3 was the big problem in the 1st half of the show!!!!!

[Grandpa]

There's plenty of great music with Bernstein to keep any corps rolling for years - has anyone done the Chichester Psalms?

The question is the show concept they decide to wrap around it.

[brichtimp]

Seemed like the battery was tacet for close to 3 minutes last night at the start of the show. IMHO, a waste of one of the Cadets' traditional strengths.

[George Dixon]

12 hours ago, Jeff Ream said:

i heard one two weeks ago

me too

[George Dixon]

33 minutes ago, brichtimp said:

Seemed like the battery was tacet for close to 3 minutes last night at the start of the show. IMHO, a waste of one of the Cadets' traditional strengths.

yup - let's face it - the entire "Mass" wasn't exactly percussive centric type score to choose

If they choose an OTWF type program for next year it lends itself to a much more percussive approach - Mass is incredible lyrical for the most part

[mcjordansc]

12 hours ago, Crown Phan said:

Hop needs to step aside. That much is certain.

He does not need to step aside. He needs to run YEA and approach the Cadets like a CEO approached a business unit of a larger organization. Help with vision, approve executive hires, establish a budget, etc. Hire someone to run the Cadets day to day. You do not push out a person who has brought an organization the success Hopkins has brought the Cadets. The board helps him redirect his energy into developing a long term plan that allows the entire organization to succeed when he does decide to retire. I think if he walked away now the resulting chaos would basically remove the corps from any discussion of a championship for many, many years. 

 

[ShortAndFast]

It seems like the biggest thing the Cadets need to address is program coordination. They had a show which had some compelling moments, and one of the most musical books on the field. And yet in the end we got Naked Jesus and a lot of heavy-handed use of narration and crosses. And placements below the corps as a whole in percussion & brass. It's maybe worth pondering how the Cavaliers, whose entire GE/show concept was a huge pile of electronic cheese, somehow managed to better connect with the audience and judges.

DCI is insanely competitive right now - frankly Cadets should consider themselves lucky that they were not passed by BK. There are too many groups putting out good shows, and Cadets no longer attract the level of talent that medals even with a weak show. If they are going to rebuild, they need to field shows that are better designed than what's around them, so that they attract better performers who want to march those shows.

There are a lot of opinions on DCP that Hop is the problem - I personally don't sit in Cadets design meetings and don't have any idea where the design process goes off the rails. But certainly the responsibility to fix it is on his shoulders. As director, his job is to hire and empower a creative & instructional team that gets the right product on the field.