Living The Dream

Marching band enjoys unique summer as ‘gypsys’

Every summer, thousands of high school and college students climb on to buses with their air mattresses, suitcases, trumpets, trombones and tubas in tow. They'll spend June, July and part of August playing at hundreds of events, culminating in national championships in Indianapolis.

Along the way, they'll sleep in high school gyms, eat most of their meals from a kitchen on wheels that's part of their convoy and play music as much as 12 hours a day, all in pursuit of the Drum Corps International dream: "To provide a life-changing experience for youth through the art of marching music performance."

FYI

Music on the Move

Competitors

Crossmen

Louisiana Stars

Pioneer

Music City

Genesis

Colts

Blue Stars

Cascades

Carolina Crown

INFO — dci.org

FAQ

Drum Corps International:

Music on the Move

WHEN — 7 p.m. Tuesday

WHERE — Tiger Stadium in Bentonville

COST — $20-$30

INFO — bentonvillepride.com

Nine bands will compete Tuesday at Tiger Stadium in Bentonville. Fred Morrison is director of the Crossmen, a 40-year-old group now based in San Antonio, Texas. Morrison was not a marching band member, he says, but his children were, at Reagan High School in San Antonio. He and his wife were band booster presidents, he recalls, and the topic of having a drum corps often came up. But it was cost prohibitive.

"It would have cost half a million dollars in equipment alone," Morrison says. "Plus a 10- or 15-year journey from scratch to competitive. So we shelved the idea."

And then, in 2006, the phone rang.

The Crossmen, from the Philadelphia area, "were either going to be disbanded or moved."

"We had a meeting in my living room, and two weeks later, I was in a tractor and pulling one of the (equipment) trailers back to San Antonio," Morrison says. "In November, we had our first camp, and 300 people showed up to audition! The Crossmen is a long-established name with a great history. And there was a real pent-up demand in Texas."

Morrison says Texas and competitive drum corps made for "a natural" combination.

"Marching band is successful and supported when you have great football programs, and the state of Texas is known for its high school football," he says. "They go hand in hand.

"And competition is the next natural thing (for bands) because they put in so much time and energy. Ultimately, people recognize what value music has toward helping kids stay in school and what it does for them as people. For my kids, who were at a pretty large school with about 3,500 students, it was safe haven. And their grades were better during marching season when they had no time!"

Drum Corps International bands are "the cream of the crop," Morrison says. "The best band students, the best marchers, the best players." For the 150 spots on the Crossmen, "we audition over 600 people," he adds. This year, he says, he has members from "a dozen or so" states and four from Japan.

Born in 1972, DCI involves more than 7.2 million young people ages 13 to 22 from the United States and more than 15 other countries. Some of the bands, however, date back to the 1930s and '40s, Morrison explains, "and have chosen a certain musical style."

"Some groups are known for classical, like the Phantom Regiment, but the Crossmen are known for world music," he says. Depending on the group, the music may come first or a visual concept may dictate the music. This year, the Crossmen are performing a show titled "Alma Gitana: A Gypsy Soul."

"The gypsy life seems to fit the Crossmen," Morrison says, which have had nine different homes in the band's history, "and the whole drum corps life is kind of a gypsy existence." But this director couldn't be happier with his job.

"They are some of the best kids to be around, some of the hardest working kids, and unified in wanting to be the best they can be," he says with pride. "They make it easy for you. I've been around band kids a lot, and I think there are fewer discipline issues and fewer problems with band kids. Then you take the cream of that crop. It's a team, a team effort, everybody pulling in the same direction.

"It really restores your faith in humanity."

NAN What's Up on 07/11/2014

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