The Festival has presented many of the premier soloists and ensembles of our time: the Grammy Award-winning Emerson and Angeles String Quartets, pianists Claude Frank and Menahem Pressler, the Tokyo Quartet, the Beaux Arts Trio, guitarist Sharon Isbin, flutist Julius Baker, clarinetist Benny Goodman, and many others.

In recognition of the enormous impact he has had on the cultural life of Vermont, founder and Artistic Director Mel Kaplan has received both the Governor’s Award for Outstanding Contributions to the State of Vermont, and the Vermont Arts Council’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

The Mizzou New Music Initiative is excited to announce the on the campus of the University of Missouri. Eight composers from around the world will be selected through a portfolio application process to compose a work to be performed by the internationally acclaimed new music ensemble, Alarm Will Sound. Composers will receive private composition lessons with Martin Bresnick recipient of the first Charles Ives Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and Derek Bermel, Composer-in-Residence of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra; take part in workshops with Alarm Will Sound; participate in masterclasses; receive a professional live recording and the premiere performance of their work.

The programs of the Mizzou New Music Initiative have been made possible through the generous support of the Sinquefield Charitable Foundation. The City of Columbia Office of Cultural Affairs provided financial assistance for the Mizzou New Music Summer Festival.

New Amsterdam Records presents ACME with Craig Wedren and ICE with Corey Dargel and Kathleen Supové as part of the Archipelago concert series.

Tickets: 718.222.8500 or www.galapagosartspace.com

Archipelago concludes with a closing event featuring a mix of stellar ensembles and performers. Known for its definitive takes on the masterpieces of the 20th & 21st century, ACME seeks to redefine chamber music’s roll in a new century. Joining them on stage will be Craig Wedren, composer/vocalist known for his work with the legendary math rock outfit Shudder to Think, and his impressive body of film music work (High Art, Velvet Goldmine). Corey Dargel will use the evening to explore themes of loss & love in a New Amsterdam dual record release event. For the semi-staged Removable Parts, Corey tells the twisted story of voluntary amputees with pianist Kathleen Supové. The International Contemporary Ensemble will join Corey for selections from Thirteen Near-Death Experiences.

Timo Andres – celeste
Nuiko Wadden – harp
Haruka Fujii, Chris Thompson – vibraphones
Caleb Burhans, Yuki Numata – violins
Nadia Sirota – viola
Clarice Jensen – cello

The entire show, including more John Luther Adams and Kevin Volans, is streaming on Q2 here.

Traditions have a way of sticking for years or decades in drum corps, be they emotional or borderline psychotic. For one, there’s a lot of tradition related to the way the corps moves around before and after the show; 128 people need to get from place to place and on/off the field without breaking character. Stay in step in this situation, walk casually focused in that situation, don’t let people break the ranks, don’t run in uniform, hold your hat this way not that way, it can get pretty military-ish (blah). But the post show playoff is a cool moment of charming simplicity. Drumlines have been playing parade-ey cadences for ever and ever (some are so great), but I’m not exactly sure when the post-show playoff became the specific responsibility of the bass drum line. Here is the most famous one, if only because of its weirdly ominous simplicity. But here is the classic Santa Clara Vanguard playoff, which has walked the corps off the field for no less than 35 years straight in one form or another, and is referred to by the line as simply “SCV.”

I wanted to post this because I finally got around to uploading a video I’ve been hanging onto for a while: the 1995 bass line, who loved to grab attention in any way they possibly could (it was a long, difficult summer), used to park in front of the stands and extend that cadence into a little post-show. This is the last half of it:

SCV Bass Drum Line 1995 play “Strange Purple Orangoutans” by Ryan Stohs after an early season show in California.

Apologies about embarrassing over-excited drunk guy superfan. That tends to happen. After that summer I had an inspired moment and wrote a playoff of my own, also set up with the classic “SCV” riff, but for the whole drumline. I’m sure nobody ever saw it. I threw it into a box, which I just discovered the other day, omg 15 years later? Crazy. I remember the feeling of writing drumline music back then; it was so exciting to be creating music of my own (I knew next to nothing at that point about writing for pitched instruments, only drums) but also frustrating because I just had to imagine what it might have sounded like. Because of the time involved in learning music and getting 20 kids to play it well enough to be even just recognizable, there just weren’t opportunities for “readings” back then.

Playoff (1995, after “SCV”)
Chris Thompson

But NOW! My computer is full of tiny magical robots that can read music and also play the drums! So all I have to do is put the notes in to the lefty software Sibelius (also crucial here is Tapspace’s “Virtual Drumline,” sample library, which every composer should know about because in addition to having the only library of realistic marching percussion samples, it also has some of the best orchestral percussion samples as well), and I can hear just what that piece of music would sound like, played by a live drumline. And so can you!

(audio file above! If you are using google reader, you have to click through to listen)

If you want to see how this all works on the score, here it is!

I plan to write more drumline music but need to figure out a possible scenario in which that might be appropriate in my life today. I’m open to suggestions.

a) …have a listen to Daníel Bjarnason on Q2.

For example, here’s my favorite bit of Spindrift; the soloist slips into the background and you get a simple pairing of vibe and clarinet with piano and tuned gongs gently hovering above and below. It’s Orchestration We Can Believe In:

Spindrift – by Daníel Bjarnason (Featuring Vicky Chow, pianist)
And that’s also Alicia Lee playing clarinet and Mike Truesdell playing gongs, who has a recital Friday that you should totally go to! (note: if you are using google reader, there is an audio file above you are not seeing, click through to the post to listen).

b) …check out Alex Ross’ followup post on drum corps/marching bands doing Shostakovich. Apparently there were others who wanted to make sure the Phantom Regiment wasn’t overlooked (and also point out a Shostakovich 5 from the mid-70s I literally had NO IDEA EXISTED. Warning: those 70s bugles are a little intense). I realize I could have definitely been clearer in my post about my main point, which is simply that it isn’t just about Shostakovich; these groups have been doing seriously adventurous repertoire by lots of different 20th century composers since at least the early 90s. For example, the group I marched with’s 2010 show is Bartok’s CONCERTO FOR ORCHESTRA. !!!  Bring. It. On. dotcom. Alas, there are not videos yet. But here’s their plan.

c) …watch some dudes in haz-mat uniforms play crotales made out of saw blades. I feel this requires no further explanation.

Shostakovich 10th Symphony, Scherzo. Phantom Regiment, 2002.

The answer that Ross missed starts with my manifesto: a survey of “marching to Shostakovich” (or “marching to anything” for that matter) that features only high school and college marching bands without any mention of  Drum Corps International (DCI) is like trying to identify the best basketball players in the world without mentioning the NBA.

But I absolutely don’t fault him for not finding it – a google search for “Shostakovich marching band” or even just “Shostakovich marching” brings up nothing related to DCI. Also, drum corps lacks visibility in general and is still a cult phenomenon, known by a very small segment of the population (especially on the east coast, and especially among the classical music community). But that hasn’t kept it from evolving into a high art form in the 30 or so years since it crawled away from it’s military history.

Most of the bands Ross discovered were doing shows derived directly from a handful of highly influential drum corps performances:

Phantom Regiment 2002, featuring parts of the 7th and 10th Symphonies and 2nd piano concerto. Skip right to 1:35 for their badass (and often-imitated) version of that scherzo from the 10th, which I previewed above from the parking lot.

Phantom Regiment 1996, featuring parts of the 1st and 5th Symphonies.

Santa Clara Vanguard 1985, featuring Festive Overture.

In the world of marching music DCI does it first, and inevitably in the next decade or so high schools and college bands imitate. Music companies even sell these shows as package deals to high schools and colleges so that their staffs don’t have to write them (as Ross referenced with the “Fire of Eternal Glory” package). But even those companies aren’t innovating anything, but simply watering down and repackaging the shows created by the pros.

And who are the pros? Obviously there needs to be a creative team of adults to create the content, but what’s amazing about this activity is that the true pros are kids, for a couple of reasons. On the most fundamental level, they are the ones who are actually able to handle the physical stress of it. Check out a vingette about the physical demands on a tenor player:

Second, they are the ones who have nights and weekends all year and entire summers to devote to perfection (and they often pay out of their own pockets to do it). I personally retired from the activity at age 16 but even if someone wanted to continue, everyone is forced to “age out” around age 22. Our average summer in drum corps consisted of camps all weekend until the moment school was out, at which point we started 9 am – 9 pm rehearsals, with usually no more than a day or two off the entire summer. We toured for months on busses, slept on gym floors, rehearsed all day long in some of the hottest places in the country right in the dead of summer and performed at night. It’s simply divine hell on earth.

Back to Shostakovich: Ross referenced another post about the “badassery” dimension of the composer’s music. What does it jump at to prove that point? Of course the famous video of Dudamel doing the Shostakovich 10 scherzo, with the Simón Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela. It’s natural that an activity full of kids would gravitate toward Shostakovich’s music. Kids do badassery better anyway. Even in orchestras, given the right leadership and guidance, some of the fieriest performances can be given by kids performing works for their first time. Drum corps is that fire and adrenaline multiplied by adding movement.

And how they move:

It is a fact that when these shows are imitated by high schools and colleges, the first thing to get watered down is the movement. It’s impossible, dangerous even, to try to do this stuff without hundreds of hours of rehearsal. The level this activity has reached is astounding, yet the majority of the country doesn’t even know it exists. And Shostakovich isn’t the only difficult 20th century composer they are tackling. Drum corps is where I first learned about John Adams, Philip Glass, Samuel Barber, Bela Bartok, among many others, when I was 14 years old. One might think an attempt at Shostakovich by a marching band is a ballsy cult-like venture if one still thinks the pinnacle of the activity is high school kids waddling around a football field playing Beatles arrangements. But do a quick search for Bartok or Stravinsky at this corps repertoire site. It is quite enlightening to the contrary.

Star of Indiana Rehearsing Barber’s “Medea,” 1993.

Moral of the story: sometimes I reaaaaly want to comment on Alex Ross’ blog. But also, summer is coming! The pros will be in your town soon. If anyone is interested I’ll write lots more on this over the course of the summer.

Available now at temporaryresidence.com

Guess I’ll wait this one out.