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Not Necessarily Drum Corps - Female Brass Players


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Recent corps announcements introduced Drum Majors for the 2020 season. Many are pursuing music educations which
sparked my curiosity about what a drum corps experience would equate to in a career for women.

Like many, my experience in drum corps was mostly male with a few female players, but as drum corps has evolved,
it seems like there has been an increase in female players.

I've recently discovered Rachel Portman who is a cinematic composer and the following clips of some very talented
female trumpet players on youtube.

I would love to hear comments especially from the women on the forum and your experiences as a female brass player.

There are many. Meanwhile, enjoy these few samples of some wonderful trumpet players

Alison Balsom
Song - III. Rondo - Minore - Maggiore
Artist - London Mozart Players

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Ten Thing Brass Ensemble plays Mozart's "Rondo alla turca" from Piano Sonata 11 in A major, K. 331
Published on Mar 28, 2017
The ten women of tenThing, the lively and distinctive Norwegian brass sensation, spent a day in Chicago as they made their way from concerts in California to
performances in Virginia.  In addition to sampling our city’s famous deep-dish pizza, they visited WFMT’s studios to perform on Impromptu.
Watch them perform an all-brass arrangement of Mozart’s “Rondo alla turca,” from Piano Sonata No. 11 in A major (K. 311) below.

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Jazz Trumpeter Cindy Bradley In The DM Zone Plus Live Concert Footage  
The DM Zone TV
Premiered Jun 18, 2019
A video interview also features some great live performance footage from Cindy Bradley Live At The Rhapsody Jazz Cafe! Enjoy this extraordinary musician.

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Best of Melissa Venema - A Sampling of Melissa Venema
Published on Sep 3, 2013

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The OHMI Trust - Alison Balsom talks about the Trumpet
260,994 views•Oct 18, 2012

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Introducing the Baroque Trumpet with Alison Balsom - Classic FM
6,081 views•Dec 20, 2019
What is a baroque trumpet (or a 'natural' trumpet) – and how on earth do you play it?

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So, have you heard Tine Thing Helseth?:

And there have been plenty of great female brass players in drum corps. Most here are familiar with names like Bonnie Ott Thompson (Commodores and BD) and Garfield's Barbara Maroney, but the Godmother of them all was Lil Lindy who taught and soloed with the Sunrisers until the early '60s. She and her husband Bill went on to instruct hundreds of young players in the NY area.

Later,  Ada Di Marco (St. Fidelis Majestic Knights) and Laura Schachner Hanlon (Miraculous Medal Orbits) tore it up in East Coast I&E competitions, defeating most of the boys, including Wayne Downey and yours truly.

Gail De Angelis Balls (ND-ettes, Garfield, 27th Lancers, Sunrisers) and Rene Meyer Delucia (Saints, Garfield) both played upper lead soprano in some excellent hornlines.

Today there's nothing so unusual about great female brass players in and out of drum corps, and that's a good thing.

Edited by ironlips
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On 3/14/2020 at 9:58 AM, ironlips said:

So, have you heard Tine Thing Helseth?:

And there have been plenty of great female brass players in drum corps. Most here are familiar with names like Bonnie Ott Thompson (Commodores and BD) and Garfield's Barbara Maroney, but the Godmother of them all was Lil Lindy who taught and soloed with the Sunrisers until the early '60s. She and her husband Bill went on to instruct hundreds of young players in the NY area.

Later,  Ada Di Marco (St. Fidelis Majestic Knights) and Laura Schachner Hanlon (Miraculous Medal Orbits) tore it up in East Coast I&E competitions, defeating most of the boys, including Wayne Downey and yours truly.

Gail De Angelis Balls (ND-ettes, Garfield, 27th Lancers, Sunrisers) and Rene Meyer Delucia (Saints, Garfield) both played upper lead soprano in some excellent hornlines.

Today there's nothing so unusual about great female brass players in and out of drum corps, and that's a good thing.

A Respectful Thank You to you (ironlips)
I always enjoy your posts. They are factual, informative and entertaining.

I did not mean to imply that great female brass players are unusual. In fact, when I marched with my junior (Hawks, Richmond, CA) 1962- 1967, I dated the soloist from
the Capitolairs Girls Drum and Bugle Corps from Sacramento, CA circa 1965.

Here is a brief clip by Roy Perez showing the Capitolairs Girls Drum and Bugle Corps from Sacramento, CA (The audio track is the Stockton Caballeros Drum & Bugle Corps
who were one of 2 senior California corps but competed with the juniors since the Caliornia circuit was small.)

This was just after the Mardarines was founded in 1963 as the Ye Wah Drum and Lyre Corps, as an activity for youth of Asian-American heritage. Roy Wong, Frank Lim,
Thomas Fong, and Yuk Fong had originally approached the Sacramento Chinese community with the intent of starting a drum and bugle corps to perform at the many
festivals and parades held each year in the Sacramento area. After struggling to get underway, the corps made its debut on the Fourth of July, 1963. A color guard was
added to the corps in 1964 and became a competitive unit in 1965. Later, they entered the field as a competition corps, the group changed its name to the Mandarins
Drum and Bugle Corps in 1967 which we know today.

I discovered Tine Thing Helseth last year on youtube and she is great. This year, I became interested in exploring the music of Rachael Portman (Rachel Mary Berkeley
Portman, OBE (born 11 December 1960) who is an English composer who is best known for scoring films.

I do think that more women in band are choosing to play brass instruments as evidenced by Santa Clara Vanguard and Concord Blue Devils use of female brass players.

I was hoping to have more replies from female members in the forum how the drum corps experience had created or enhanced their careers.


As an extra historical bonus, if anyone would care to see Santa Clara Vanguard in a first performance after their split from the Sparks Drum and Bell corps, adding
bugles and becoming the Santa Clara Vanguard, you can see them here along with 10 others including the Kingsmen:

1967 Festival of Music Drum Corps show Highlights of 11 corps  
Roy Perez
Published on Nov 1, 2014

 

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Don't forget Brass Angels, the all female theater group made up of mostly drum corps gals who were taught by mostly drum corps staff members and toured Japan in 2008.

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3 minutes ago, bstar82 said:

Don't forget Brass Angels, the all female theater group made up of mostly drum corps gals who were taught by mostly drum corps staff members and toured Japan in 2008.

Wonderful,

Are there any video links on youtube or vimeo to watch?

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I marched shoulder to shoulder with Gail De Angelis Balls in 27. Literally. Great sop player! 

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6 minutes ago, Jurassic Lancer said:

I marched shoulder to shoulder with Gail De Angelis Balls in 27. Literally. Great sop player! 

Yes, just went to see if I could find out anything about her. Found a facebook page with that name which links to Blue Stars DB&C. If that's her, she appears to still be active in the activity.

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7 minutes ago, bstar82 said:

 

That is so awesome.

Here's the url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_qjdZCEr10

I notice it's Blue Devils staff that contributed to the production

 

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