Cadets and Medea

[ddoy42]

I LOVE THIS SHOW!!!!!! I bought the audio from San Antonio and can't stop listening to it. But I do have a question that I'm surprised I have not read in the forums yet (sorry if it has and I missed it)...

Who else noticed that the Cadets play MEDEA at the end of the show (a la Star of Indiana 1993). As they play, it kicks into The Twilight Zone for a couple measures before the final notes. It's not that Medea doesn't fit this show, but I want to know if it's just a coincidence, a show of respect recognizing the absense of Star, or maybe a little sarcastic slap in the face (in a playful way, of course) since Cadets beat them that year. Does anyone know the significance, if any?

[vaguardguy]

The Cadet's closer was announced as "Mirrors" (thus all the look-alike school-girls running into each other), an original piece based loosely off "Dance of Vengeance" from Samuel Barber's "Medea". Yes, the two sound very similar (I wonder how the music licensing worked on that one).

As far as Star of Indiana is concerned, I'm sure it's a complete non-issue. I doubt it's homage, nor a jibe. The comparison between the two corps' usage is pretty irrelevant except that yes, indeed one of the corps has played it in the past (its not like Star "owned" that piece in the same way you can perceive certain other corps "owning" a particular song).

I do agree that it's a great show. With a minor exception of an awful, foolish-sounding interpretation of the opening of Bjork's "Cvalda" (sor, regardless of your stance on amps, it really does sound bad (though I confess aesthetics are fairly subjective)), this is a great piece of drum corps; worthy of a title.

Edit: spelling/grammar

Edited July 25, 2005 by vaguardguy

[chris ncsu]

The Cadet's closer was announced as "Mirrors" (thus all the look-alike school-girls running into each other), an original piece based loosely off "Dance of Vengeance" from Samuel Barber's "Medea".  Yes, the two sound very similar (I wonder how the music licensing worked on that one).

As far as Star of Indiana is concerned, I'm sure it's a complete non-issue.  I doubt it's homage, nor a jibe.  The comparison between the two corps' usage is pretty irrelevant except that yes, indeed one of the corps has played it in the past (its not like Star "owned" that piece in the same way you can perceive certain other corps "owning" a particular song).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I agree. Has anyone noticed the end of The Cadets 2000 opener (the end of the piece before the ballad) sounds an awful lot like Medea also? I've always thought that. *shrug*

[happycomposer]

Revivng this long-dead thread to look on it with hindsight -

On 7/24/2005 at 9:08 PM, vaguardguy said:

The Cadet's closer was announced as "Mirrors" (thus all the look-alike school-girls running into each other), an original piece based loosely off "Dance of Vengeance" from Samuel Barber's "Medea". Yes, the two sound very similar (I wonder how the music licensing worked on that one).

As far as Star of Indiana is concerned, I'm sure it's a complete non-issue. I doubt it's homage, nor a jibe. The comparison between the two corps' usage is pretty irrelevant except that yes, indeed one of the corps has played it in the past (its not like Star "owned" that piece in the same way you can perceive certain other corps "owning" a particular song).

Two things... one, I bet the reason that the 2005 Cadets asked Bocook to write two original pieces and base them on Whitacre's Equus*** and Barber's Medea is because they likely paid out the *** for the rights to use two Bernard Herrman compositions as well as two of Bjork's songs, both of which come from a film. Depending on who owns the rights to those songs, they may have had to shell out a lot of money for those.

Two, with the benefit of hindsight this use of Medea is SUPER interesting because intentional or not, this is one of only FOUR instances of Medea being used in finals (up to 2023), and that makes it referential regardless. Outside of finals, it's only been directly used three more times (not counting DCA or international corps). Between 1993 and 2005, no Div 1 or Div 2 corps played Medea (Crown's "inspired by" original composition in 2002 really sounds... nothing like the Barber). And suddenly GH and the Cadets decide to use it in a show designed to win, that would end up tying for the highest score of all time to that point? From my high tower in 2023, that SCREAMS "hey Star alum, look what we can do."

This is to say NOTHING of how intentionally or unintentionally referential the Cadets 2013 version is, with the way it's arranged into the brass being extremely similar and also hitting similar beats teleologically (like how it starts with the small ensemble brass, for instance, and how the build to the final hit of the show has some material that could have been pulled directly from Jim Prime's book in 1993). And don't even get me started on Crown 2016's version (a ######-off show from Star's spiritual successor? Come on now!)

I'm doing some research about this and just thought I'd weigh in. Super, super interesting stuff with hindsight.

 

***We also got the monumental Liquid from this. Go Jay Bocook!

[ranintothedoor]

Thanks for this.  Brought back some memories of the camps from that year with the staff talking to us about it.  They were acutely aware of the Star comparisons and wanted to make it unique enough to stand alone and so decided to make it an original composition "inspired by" Medea rather than using Medea itself.    

Same with Liquid.  I remember they said that they didn't want a straight arrangement of Equus because it's... about... horses... (lol) and didn't want to confuse anyone, so they asked Mr. Bocook to write an original "inspired by" Equus.  

[craiga]

Given recent events, the school girl uniforms haven't aged well.

[Lance]

Crown and The Cadets both used mainly ostinatos from the Barber piece as inspiration for their takes by Bocook and Klesch. Both significantly changed chord progressions.  Very similar to what Saucedo did when he combined McTee and Daugherty ostinatos from Soundings and Niagara Falls for tremendous effect in their 2000 shows.  I actually hear a lot more of Barber in Crown's (2016) take on Medea compared to the Cadets', and that's fine.  That Cadets 05 show is pretty much perfect in every way to my ears, so that's not a criticism.  

 

Edited November 21, 2023 by Lance

[happycomposer]

On 11/21/2023 at 8:34 AM, ranintothedoor said:

Thanks for this.  Brought back some memories of the camps from that year with the staff talking to us about it.  They were acutely aware of the Star comparisons and wanted to make it unique enough to stand alone and so decided to make it an original composition "inspired by" Medea rather than using Medea itself.    

Same with Liquid.  I remember they said that they didn't want a straight arrangement of Equus because it's... about... horses... (lol) and didn't want to confuse anyone, so they asked Mr. Bocook to write an original "inspired by" Equus.  

Oh wow. This is super interesting! And extremely helpful for my research. Since that comment my thesis has become more about how people make associations with repeat repertoire selections, so the fact that creative staff made a unique composition to AVOID that direct association is a super interesting point. It also makes the fact that people still hear that association even more interesting. Thanks for the tidbit!!!

(Can't reach out to GH for obvious reasons and I've reached out to Jay Bocook and a few other creative staff from that year and haven't heard anything back... this is a real hail mary!)

[mfrontz]

Wayne Downey sneaked in an ostinato from Medea as a bridge to the end of BD's 96 closer.