IPE and DrumSpirit Percussion Ensemble present the IP Party 2 on Saturday April 4th in Dadizele - Belgium. Percussion fans who have an IPE European Championships ticket, can enter the rehearsal performances of NorthCoast Academy (USA), Göteborg (Sweden) and party host DrumSpirit (Belgium) free of charge.

***image1***

The DCA World Championships will be staying in Drum Corps Friendly Rochester, New York for at least two more years. The 2009 championship completes a record setting four year run in Rochester. Inquiries and bids were received from a number of different areas. However, in the end and weighing all issues, the Executive Board chose a new two year bid from the 'Visit Rochester' visitor and convention bureau.

8th of March 2009 was an historical day in British drum corps as one of the original member corps of DCUK and the 1st DCUK Champions, the Dagenham Crusaders Drum & Bugle Corps, came back together to form their Alumni Corps as a tribute to their late corps director John Johnson (one of the founders of DCUK) and as part DCUK's 30th anniversary celebrations in 2009.

***image3***

Only three days left to order your presale tickets for the 2009 Indoor Percussion Europe Championships. On Sunday 15th (at midnight) the presale will close. Almost 500 tickets have been sold so far.

Isabelle Eggermont has joined Drum Corps Europe's webteam. She will become an editor for the French part of the Drum Corps Europe website (accessible through www.drumcorps.fr). The French web team now consists of Isabelle Eggermont and Thierry Plume, who joined the web team a few years ago.

All judges files of Indoor Percussion Europe contests will be available through the DCE Document Manager. As IPE is using the DCE judging system, and DCE collects all files and stores them online. The files of the IPE contest in Estaimpuis are now available.

Millennium Drum & Bugle Corps from Verdello has announced their 2009 programme entitled 'LUX'. The programme has been written by Key Poulan, Shawn Glyde and Dan Bryan.

***image1***

Lancers Drum Corps Alumni had their first official rehearsal on 4th March at Longbarn county Primary school in Padgate Warrington. Even though it is early days yet, they had new comers from Morcambe.

The box office for the 30th British Winterguard Championships has now been open for just over one week and Winter Guard United Kingdom is extremely pleased to report that 50 percent of the seats in main stand have now been sold.

Drum Corps Europe is proud to announce that it will soon launch the DCE Media Store. This online store will offer video and audio files of DCE corps performances for use on portable video and audio devices.

Drum Corps Netherlands has again several cadet corps entering the competition arena. Four corps have registered for the Cadet Class so far, and more corps are expected to sign up soon.

***image1***

Co-founder of the all-age drum corps organising body Drum Corps Associates, Dr. Almo J. Sebastianelli, passed away on Wednesday, February 25th, at the age of 93. Sebastianelli served in the Army Air Corps during World War II and later in the United States Air Force. Practicing dentistry for more than 60 years, he was known simply as 'Doc' to friends and family.

In 2007 Drum Corps United Kingdom launched 'DCUK Theatre' which was an online media player and was used to make video clips of corps performances available to view on the website. Unfortunately the company that hosted the software to run this feature have changed their charging policy and therefore DCUK Theatre has had to be closed down.

With a lot of help from member organisations and from bands, The British Federation of Youth Marching Band Organisations has just published an impressive 20 page full colour magazine. The magazine has features by international percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie and Cultural Olympiad Supremo Bill Morris. It is packed with pictures of bands from all areas of the activity.

Drum corps fans will again get their chance to 'make the call' as they select, and then judge, their favourite performances of Drum Corps International's 2009 spring cinema event, The Countdown. The program will feature six full-length corps performances from among the 72 DCI World Championship finalists of the past six seasons (2003-2008), as chosen by fans during an online vote.

CONCORD is pleased to announce preliminary details of our major celebration of the 25th anniversary of the formation of the organisation. All Alumni, staff, current members, parents, supporters and friends are invited to attend an evening of reminiscence and celebration to mark this special time in Concord's history.

Drum Corps Europe has added a new section to its website: DCE My News. It is a collection of the latest drum corps headlines from many sources, all brought together on one page. Visitors can decide which headlines they want to see.

Early on the morning of 18th February the members of Poynton Commodores took part in filming for the hit BBC sitcom �??Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps�?� alongside actor Will Mellor.

In 1980 the first British Colour Guard Championships took place and therefore on Saturday 4th April, at The Brentwood International Centre, WinterGuard United Kingdom will be hosting the 30th consecutive British Championships.

It is with great great sadness I inform the wider Band / Corps community of the tragic loss of Luke Bland, a drummer with 6th Hove Scouts. He passed away at the scene of a road traffic accident in the early hours of Saturday 14th February 2009.

Registration for the Drum Corps Netherlands season has started. Drum Corps Netherlands will run two contests in May and June, and the DCN Finals in September.

The well-known Italian hip-hop group Gemelli Diversi from Milan has invited Besana Marching Band to join them for a performance during the Italian Song Festival. The festival will be broadcasted on Italy's main TV channel RAI1.

Following the recent announcement that the Dagenham Crusaders Drum & Bugle Corps would be returning to field an Alumni Corps to perform at the 30th British Drum Corps Championships, a website has now been created.

In true epic form, Carolina Crown will open their 2009 show with an introduction in medias res, revealing a glimpse of 'everyday life' and an optimistic longing for the ideal. The show is entitled 'The Grass Is Always Greener'.

After many years away The Pacemakers will return to DCUK in their 30th anniversary year. As the only founder corps who competed at the first ever DCUK final, they are pleased to be able to help celebrate this historic milestone.

Following the success of Perfect Day in 2007 and Ave Maria last year, a month or so ago DCUK asked for ideas for a 2009 Theme Tune for DCUK. We did receive a number of suggestions and are now pleased to advise that the Theme Tune for 2009 will be 'Memory' (from the musical Cats).

DCUK are pleased to advise that, following the initial registration process in early January, all Corps that indicated they wished to be part of DCUK in 2009 have now confirmed their membership.

Atherstone YMB is pleased to announce the launch of its new website. The site has been under construction for some time and is still very much a work in progress.

Phoenix Rising currently has 80 students and they will increase this number in the months ahead. The band provides great opportunities and experiences for their students, both socially and eductionally and we all play a part in providing this service.

The webhost of the DCE website will be upgrading all servers beginning Monday, February 9th, 2009 and lasting until Friday, February 13th, 2009. This upgrade will cause some downtime for databases.

The 2009 Northern Star summer corps show concept is entitled 'From A to B'. The corps will embark on this journey using transport or transportation modes as their vehicle.

Plans had been put in place to provide a shorter BYBA Festival event over a weekend in February. Despite the efforts of the Festival Committee the festival is not going ahead for several reasons.

The Official DCUK Facebook Group has attracted its 1000th member and is still growing fast. As announced in October last year, the official DCUK Facebook group was introduced to help bring together the UK drum corps community, share news of current DCUK events and, as we enter their 30th season, to share cherished memories of days gone by.

WGUK have been contacted by Starriders from Germany to advise that due to the current economic situation they have had to withdraw from the European event in Stoke on Saturday 21st February and so with there now being no mainland Europe representation the WGUK Board have decided to reduce the length of day and hold a Mid-Season UK Regional.

All DVDs of the DCE Championships 2008 that were preorderd, have been shipped. The delivery time depends on the shipping time, which is usually 4-6 business days for European addresses.

Both corps representatives and DCE want to have an easier way to get feedback about the judging system. Therefore DCE and the corps that were present at the DCE symposium last Saturday have agreed a corps initiative (not part of DCE) of an instructor task force.

Since 2001, a rule has been in place that any ties for first place would be resolved at all shows based on the placement of the corps within individual captions (ordinals). The membership voted to eliminate this rule. Now, if there is a tie for first place at any DCI contest, both corps will be awarded first place.

DCE are currently looking into the possibilities are holding a Power Regional in the London area in 2010. Plans were unveiled at the recent DCE Symposium last Saturday in London, and the idea received unanimous support from all corps and national organisations represented.

This week Drum Corps Europe will start shipping the DVDs of the DCE Championships 2008. Drum corps fans who already ordered the DVD will receive their order first.

Following a unanimous vote of the Drum Corps International World Class member corps on Saturday, Jan. 24, the Cascades were approved to compete as a World Class corps on the 2009 Drum Corps International Tour.

Today, Drum Corps Europe will hold their European drum corps symposium in London. Board members from corps, instructors, designers and people from several organisations will meet to discuss plans for the future.

Ticket sales for the Indoor Percussion Europe 2009 season has started. IPE runs two shows in 2009: a contest in Estaimpuis (on the French-Belgian border) and the IPE Indoor Percussion Championships.

As the first African American president in the history of the United States, Barack Obama was inaugurated as the President of the United States, the Cadets were there. One of a hundred or so performing groups selected from 1,800 applications, the Cadets, proved to be the class of the event.

Concord now has four programmes up-and-running. The Concord AllStars provides basic music and marching instruction for younger members aged 8 to 12 years and is going very well indeed. The Ceremonial Fanfare Team continues to provide fanfares and flourishes for many local and national civic and public events.

Today, the German drum corps member Philipp Schüssler from Gevelsberg will perform in the inaugural parade for Barack Obama. The mellophone player will march in the parade with The Cadets Drum & Bugle Corps.