Five new drum corps aim to join DCI’s Open Class in 2015
In a growing resurgence of startup drum corps, five new organisations have applied to join the 2015 Drum Corps International tour as Open Class units.
The prospective groups hail from a variety of regions across the United States including Southwind from Alabama, River City Rhythm from Minnesota, Heat Wave from Florida, Jewel City from West Virginia and Freedom from Oklahoma. The applications of these new groups come on the heels of DCI’s 2014 summer season, which saw one reemerging and six new Open Class drum corps take the field at summer tour events across the country.
“That's an impressive possible twelve drum corps added over two seasons which speaks to a renaissance in the drum corps activity like we have not seen since the 1960s or 1970s”, DCI Open Class Coordinator David Eddleman said. Eddleman elaborated that the startup of these marching music ensembles is likely the result of a number of factors, including an emphasis in Drum Corps International’s business plan to engage as many students as possible in the drum corps experience. This objective has been aided in the past two years by the launch of new DCI-produced programs like DrumLine Battle and SoundSport, which provide new performing groups a logical and low-cost starting place to get involved with the DCI Tour even before becoming Open or World Class drum corps.
This has been the way Southwind, a reboot of the southern DCI corps founded in the early 1980s, has been approaching its return to competition. After seven years of inactivity, a group of the former corps’ alumni came together with a goal of fielding a drum corps once again. The road to that objective started in earnest last summer when the group put together an ensemble to participate in SoundSport events in Huntsville and in Atlanta; both of which are near the corps’ hometown region.
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