Story posted Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Cavaliers Begin Latest Quest For National Title
By DWIGHT ESAU Journal & Topics Reporter
Cavaliers, your 2009 mission, should you decide to accept it, is to win the DCI national championship this year after your third place finish in 2008.
This "mission impossible" style challenge might be the theme this year of the Rosemont-based Cavaliers, otherwise known as the "Green Machine," because of the green-white-black colors of their uniforms.
Still 137-strong and fresh from an off-season of recruiting and auditioning new and holdover members, the all-male Cavaliers organization is trying this year for its eighth Drum Corps International (DCI) world title.
Now in their 61st season, the Rosemont-based Cavaliers are currently spending two weeks at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, practicing for their 2009 tour, which begins June 15 in Goshen, Indiana. Their first competition is June 19 in Rockford.
Their tour this year will also take them to towns in Minnesota, Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and back to Rosemont. The tour climaxes with the DCI world finals in Indianapolis Aug. 2-9.
Last year, the Cavaliers finished less than a point behind the Blue Devils of California and another corps, in third place. The Cavaliers have won DCI world titles in 1992, 1995, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, and 2006.
Since 1998, they have never finished lower than 4th. In the years before DCI took over international competition, the Cavaliers won three American Legion and 10 VFW national competitions.
The Corps this year includes 32 percussionists, 70 brass players, and 35 members of the color guard. Journal-area participants include brass players Dan Flynn of Barrington, Matt Kaempfe of Mt. Prospect (in his third year), and Andrew Rhebergen of Roselle.
"We have a member from Thailand, a couple from Canada, and three from Japan this year," said a Cavaliers spokesperson this week.
In their quest for an eighth world crown, the Cavaliers have prepared a four-part program called, "The Great Divide." It consists of music and original marching routines to "Extreme Makeover," by Johan de Meij; "Pampeana No. 3, Impetuosamente" by Alberto Ginastera; "The Engulfed Cathedral" by Claude Debussy; and "On the Great Divide," by John Adams.
In an offbeat, historical side note, the corps website reveals how the corps got its name back in the early 1950s. The name choice was based on two things: the influence of a 1950s corps called the Grenadiers, and the inspiration provided by a (brace yourselves, Cavalier fans) cigarette advertising sign promoting Cavalier smokes.
"The (picture of that newly emerging cigarette) brand was a natural for us," says a corps historian. "It had just the right sound, and a swashbuckling image to go with it. The (cigarette) logo became ours, a man standing erect but at a jaunty angle, complete with plumed hat, sword, and cape."
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