Cameron Honnen just completed his fifth December audition camp with the Troopers last weekend. It was anything but old hat. Every year I learn something new, said the member of the baritone line and music-education student at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction, Colo. This year, Honnen and the rest of the horn line got their first high-energy lesson of the new season from decorated composer Robert W. Smith, the Troopers brass arranger. Working through segments of the closer for the 2015 program, Smith gave the brass a taste of the mixed meters, terraced dynamics effects and other elements of the music they will perform during next summers DCI tour. Our music is much harder. Definitely a step up, said Savannah Smith, a University of Alabama music-education major and second-year mellophone player. She should know. Her dad wrote it. Smith, along with Troopers program and staff coordinator Donnie VanDoren and corps director Fred Morris, announced the program, Wild Horses, to the corps members at the camp, at a packed meeting following a day of rehearsal. I got goosebumps, said Roni Fraser, a second-year mellophone from San Antonio, as she listened to the source music, and to the staff as they described the shows progression. Smith, who arranged the Troopers brass for their 2013 and 2014 shows, said the 2015 program is not the Troopers Ive known for the past two years. Its the same direction, but a different path. Its still the Troopers, but were trying to get into their hearts, their soul, and the spirit of being a Trooper. We are all wild horses. The front ensemble will be prominently featured in the scoring -- like a fifth section of the horn line, he told the corps. Especially in the finale. It will be a front-ensemble blessing, a curse and a nightmare, Smith joked. Together with the battery, it will be a major percussion statement, he said, describing the closer as 4 minutes of pure drum corps. Honnen, the baritone vet, said the corps is ready to take up the challenge. He said the weekend was one of the bigger December camps he can remember attending in his five seasons. And already he senses big things at upcoming camps. Whys that? What Im impressed by is that some of the rookies are better than I ever was at that stage, the vet said. In future camps, I feel theres going to be strong retention. The next full camp is scheduled for Jan. 9-11 in Cheyenne. In addition, one-day satellite auditions for drums and brass will he held Jan. 17 in three cities: Dallas; Lexington, Ky.; and Lebanon, Ind. A fourth one-day drum/brass satellite audition is scheduled for Jan. 24 in Orlando, Fla. Register for any of them at troopersdrumcorps.org. As the meeting broke up and corps members filed out for snacks and lights out, Smith offered a message for young people considering their drum-corps options for 2015: If they think they know the Troopers, thats great, he said. But this is the Troopers of the future.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 18:18:04 +0000
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