A combination of cutting-edge 21st century contemporary music, and an originally composed program will be the two distinct musical offerings for this summer's editions of the Santa Clara Vanguard and Vanguard Cadets drum and bugle corps, when they take to the road to perform and compete among the nation's best world class drum corps on the 2008 Summer Music Games tour sponsored by Drum Corps International.

Both groups begin the California portion of their national summer competitive tour on Saturday evening, June 21 when they perform at the annual Pacific Procession drum corps show, being held at Mt. Diablo High School in Concord, CA.  

Each group will continue to tour the state through June, competing and performing in high school and college stadiums in the Central Valley and the Los Angeles metro area before culminating the California portion of their summer tour in Palo Alto on Saturday evening, July 5.  Both will appear in the Stanford Stadium competition with nine other national touring drum corps including the current world champion Blue Devils from Concord, CA.

The Santa Clara Vanguard, which holds six Drum Corps International World Class Championships will offer a triad of man's development with the uniquely named program '3hree: Mind, Body and Soul.'  The musical repertoire for '3hree' presents American composer John Adams' 'Chairman Dances' as well as 'The Man in the Bath' by American composer Philip Glass to represent the Mind portion of the program.  The centerpiece of their 11 minute program 'Body' will feature the music 'Eclipse' by English composer/DJ and Tabla player Talvin Singh.  The 'Soul' portion will close each competitive performance with 'Cloudburst' by 21st century American composer Eric Whitacre.  The Vanguard will present '3hree' by utilizing 72 brass players, 33 percussionists, 42 color guard and 3 conductors.

According to Vanguard corps director Jeff Pearson, "The visual and musical routines for '3hree' will certainly be an innovative approach for the drum corps and marching band enthusiast.  'Mind' will fuse intellectually stimulating drill and movement, representing higher levels of thinking.  'Body' takes the audience on a rhythmic journey through the physical and emotional aspects of the music, and "Soul" creates a visual and musical rainstorm that will include a moment of audience participation."

The 150 students of the Santa Clara Vanguard World class corps average 19 years of age, and range from 17 to 22-years-old.  The student membership is primarily from Northern California.  The corps also draws membership from throughout the United States, as well as from Canada and Japan.  

Following the July 5 Stanford competition Vanguard will depart for performances in Colorado and New Mexico.  They will spend nearly a week competing through Texas, before continuing on tour with major competitive performances in Atlanta, Boston and Philadelphia, traveling a total of 14,000 miles in the summer before concluding their season on Saturday, August 9 at the Drum Corps International Championship at Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, where they will compete against approximately 50 other drum and bugle corps from the US, Canada, Japan and Europe seeking a seventh world championship title.

The Vanguard Cadets Open Class corps achieved a Drum Corps International Open Class World Championship in 2000 and have consistently ranked in the top five open class finalists.  The corps' membership is almost exclusively from California, with nearly 70% of the students being from the Bay area.  The Vanguard Cadet corps' average age is 17.  

This summer, the Vanguard Cadets will present 'Perspectives' an original piece of music commissioned exclusively for the Cadets by Hollywood film and television composer and Vanguard alumnus James Peterson and Los Angeles-based composer Robby Elfman.

The Vanguard Cadets 2008 original program combines a more recent exploration of contemporary music with the Vanguard organization's trademark of soaring melodies and theatrical visual storytelling.  

According to Vanguard Cadet director Rob Ripley, "Perspectives is a bit of an adventure, a departure from what we've designed in the past. We wanted to challenge the membership and instructors with a program offering spectators an experience that is at once wildly different from what they usually expect of us, but decidedly and uniquely reminiscent of Santa Clara Vanguard innovation.  'Perspectives' offers the proper balance of old, new and unexpected."
 
Living up its Vanguard name, the Cadets are the first Open Class drum and bugle corps to commission a show of entirely original music.

The Vanguard Cadets will leave on a shorter three-week tour after their performance at the California Open in Gilroy, CA on Saturday, July 19.  One week later they will perform in five Midwestern cities before arriving at the University of Indiana in Bloomington, IN to participate in the Drum Corps International Open Class semifinals competition.

Founded in 1967, Santa Clara Vanguard is a non profit performing arts organization, serving young people, primarily high school and college students from Silicon Valley, with the world-renowned Vanguard Drum & Bugle Corps of 150 students, Vanguard Cadets of 100 students, a competitive winter color guard program, and local dance education programs that serve a range of students from young children to adults. Vanguard tours in national competition during the summer, and has won six Drum Corps International (DCI) world championship titles, along with many state and regional championships.

For more information on the Santa Clara Vanguard and the Vanguard Cadets, visit their website at www.SCVanguard.org

 

Submitted by Jeff Fielder