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1 hour ago, Super Don-O said:

88 Vanguard  "Phantom of the Opera"

89 Cadets  "Les Mis"

91 Vanguard  "Miss Saigon"

95 Cadets  "An American Quintet"

97 Madison  "The Pirates of Lake Mendoza"

00 Boston  "Red"

08 Crown  "Finis"

 

 

I'm going to go with Super Don-O and his picks but I will add two others:

1987 Santa Clara Vanguard 'Russian Christmas Music'
by Michael Boo

The 1987 DCI World Championships at the University of Wisconsin’s Camp Randall Stadium welcomed Bluecoats into the Finals for the first time in the corps’ history. It’s also well remembered for the Garfield Cadets’ “Appalachian Spring” production taking the title over the Santa Clara Vanguard by only a tenth of a point.

Vanguard lost only two shows all season, both to the Cadets in Madison. Powering through to the championship title late in the summer, the Cadets had lost three shows to Spirit of Atlanta earlier in the season. By August, Spirit finished in 10th place in Madison, a whopping 10.30 points under the Cadets’ winning score. At the end, the top two corps each won one caption outright and tied each other in the other two captions on the judges’ sheets.

Santa Clara Vanguard’s costumed spectacular opened with Alfred Reed’s “Russian Christmas Music,” written by the composer in 1944 when he was a 23-year-old staff arranger for the Denver-based 519th U.S. Army Air Force Band. This piece single-handedly launched Reed on the way to becoming the nation’s most successful composer for wind bands. Reed was put under the gun to quickly write a new piece of Russian music to premiere at a major U.S.-Soviet friendship concert, to be performed by members of five service bands in the Denver area for a national broadcast audience. Reed completed the work in just 11 days, finishing five days before the concert. 

Much of the music was inspired by liturgical music of the Eastern (Russian) Orthodox Church, and the first movement, which served as the open of Vanguard’s production, was an actual Russian Christmas carol from the 16th Century, known as “Carol of the Little Russian Children.” Large metal plates replicated the sounds of church bells as corps members milled about in their Russian fur hats. Performers portraying Orthodox clergy blessed a religious icon as a thurible (an incense censer) was swung from a chain. The drum line poured out from a large fabric tunnel and the brass players let loose with the main theme of “Cathedral Chorus” before bringing down the volume to set up a big, spectacularly loud push.

2011 Cadets 'Between Angels and Demons'
by Michael Boo

The 2011 Drum Corps International Tour started with much excitement, as Carolina Crown edged the Cavaliers, Blue Devils and Cadets in the first competition of the summer by just over three tenths of a point. 

Though the Cadets finished fourth at that first show in June, come August the Pennsylvania drum corps won all four of the final competitions of 2011, ultimately bringing home its 10th title at the DCI World Championships in Indianapolis. 

As part of the corps' captivating "Angels and Demons" show, two contrasting and conflicting forces of good and evil interacted and repelled each other as soon as each side came out of opposite tunnels. Each division was dressed in the corps' traditional uniform, except for the color scheme. 

The brass, percussion and color guard performers representing the angels wore creamy white (the historic color of the corps' pants), and were the epitome of being prim and proper. The performers representing the demons wore maroon (the historic color of the corps' jackets) and demonstrated utter disrespect as they entered the field. The corps' traditional color scheme was maintained with the front ensemble and drum majors, each which had to contribute to both the good and evil sections. 

During the entrance, one of the demon characters tossing a baritone horn halfway across the football field never failed to generate enthusiasm from the audience. That instrument had been run over by a vehicle during a rehearsal earlier in the season, and out of that calamitous accident was born an action that set the stage for the entire production to follow. It was one of the most fortuitous acts of kismet in drum corps history. 

The production officially began with "Opening," based on Frank Ticheli's "Angels in the Architecture." Kingsway International, a tour company providing international travel opportunities for music groups, commissioned the piece for a massed ensemble of Australian and American musicians at Australia's famed Sydney Opera House in 2008. Ticheli, a professor at the University of Southern California, conceived the work much as the Cadets approached the show, as "a conflict between the extremes of human existence?”one divine, the other evil." 

From opposite sides of the field, the two factions of Cadets performers commenced the show to a female voice singing a 19th Century Shaker song: 

I am an angel of Light 
I have soared from above 
I am cloth'd with Mother's love. 
I have come, I have come, 
To protect my chosen band 
And lead them to the promised land. 

Often throughout the production there was no mixing of the two factions, but sometimes they intermingled alternately. According to Cadets director George Hopkins, every time the two forces (with the different colored uniforms) were intermixed, the story of the angels and demons was put on hold and the corps played straight-ahead drum corps. 

The second feature was titled, "The Demons Take the Lead," and was based on Hans Zimmer's "160 BPM" from the 2009 film, "Angels and Demons." Zimmer, one of today's most popular composers for film, wrote the work in a fast 7/8 meter, which in itself presented many marching challenges. Along the way, the demons taunted and terrorized individual members of the angels' side, and each faction passed through each other but never really mixed. 

The following section of the show was "The Angels' Turn," based on "The Doxology (Old Hundredth)" from the 1551 edition of the Genevan Psalter, a Protestant Swiss hymnal. Loys (Louis) Bourgeois wrote the melody and in 1674, Thomas Ken penned the lyrics most known today, which begin with, "Praise God, from whom all blessings flow." The demons attempted to play the lovely chorale, but just couldn't bring themselves to be nice, falling into dissonance with chords quite out of character to the piece. 

The demons formed a pitchfork drill formation and carried it away from the advancing angels, who had formed a giant set of angel wings while playing Frank Ticheli's 1998 rendition of the spiritual "Amazing Grace." 

Both factions came together for the big climax before once again separating, and a demon member of the color guard lifted high an angel member as if tranquility had been achieved, but then unceremoniously tossed her to the ground. 

Ticheli's "Angels in the Architecture" returned for "The Finale." The angels and demons began to mesh together in a single large arc, and as an angel with extended wings took center stage, the big arc morphed into an advancing company front, demonstrating that the demons were being won over to the side of virtue and spiritual enlightenment. 

As a heroic rendition of "The Old Hundredth" was played, a bank of large church bells rung out a proclamation of victory over evil, as white banners like rays of the sun spread across the back of the field. 

A dizzying array of drill evolutions flew by in rapid succession, ending with a final meshing of the angels and demons. The angels put their hands on the demons' shoulders, pushed the demons to the ground in submission to goodness, and raised their left index fingers to the heavens for the final loud chord. A single demon ended off in the far corner by himself, unrepentant and unsaved. 

Earlier in the season, we were told the demons might occasionally win, but then something happened to change that possibility. According to Hopkins, people had experienced intense emotions while watching the show and would be devastated if the angels didn't win. One man came up to him in tears after a performance, admitted he was an atheist, but proclaimed he had an intangibly profound experience at the end of the show. And with the realization of how the show was affecting people, the angels never had to worry about coming in second place.

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2017 7th Regiment Sun and Moon show  

7Rfeels.gif

 

2018 Troopers. The opener to The Black Parade with the tribute to their heritage was phenomenal.  Semis night watching Gabe not want to leave the podium. 

 

2014 Blue Stars  - I wasn’t sold on this until finals weekend but they really brought it home (intended)  

 

2014 Blue Knights  That One Second  so much GE from a rocking chair  

 

2010 Into the Light  the entry, the exit, everything in between  

 

2000 Boston Crusaders  Red was a powerhouse show

 

2000 SCV  Barber’s Adagio   There’s a personal story I’ve shared a few times on here about this  

 

1990 Troopers  Music for the Centennial of Wyoming. One of the best arrangements of Shenandoah they’ve done.  

 

1987  Cadets    Appalachian Spring was incredible  

 

 

 

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“Let it Be Me.”

Spirit of Atlanta 1978, 1979, 1980.

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9 minutes ago, KVG_DC said:

2017 7th Regiment Sun and Moon show  

7Rfeels.gif

 

2018 Troopers. The opener to The Black Parade with the tribute to their heritage was phenomenal.  Semis night watching Gabe not want to leave the podium. 

 

2014 Blue Stars  - I wasn’t sold on this until finals weekend but they really brought it home (intended)  

 

2014 Blue Knights  That One Second  so much GE from a rocking chair  

 

2010 Into the Light  the entry, the exit, everything in between  

 

2000 Boston Crusaders  Red was a powerhouse show

 

2000 SCV  Barber’s Adagio   There’s a personal story I’ve shared a few times on here about this  

 

1990 Troopers  Music for the Centennial of Wyoming. One of the best arrangements of Shenandoah they’ve done.  

 

1987  Cadets    Appalachian Spring was incredible  

 

 

 

That One Moment may well be the only time in which narration truly made the concept what it was. Beautiful writing.

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For personal reasons, I still can't listen to any Bloo rendition of Boxer (the original from '08, or more recent encores) without tearing up.

Also, what year was it that Troopers held that one note near the end of the show forever?

SCV's company front in '88 does it to me, too.

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1 hour ago, Rich Cline said:

 During the entrance, one of the demon characters tossing a baritone horn halfway across the football field never failed to generate enthusiasm from the audience.  

Including end zones, that's a field length of 120 yards.  Sorry Mike, maybe 14 yards.

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