Starry Night
This year’s marching show is inspired by the world famous Starry Night painting by painter Vincent van Gogh. We will use the colors and flowing nature of this painting to set the mood of the show and will use French Impressionist music to further propel the show concept. The exact story line is still in the works but the overall scene is Paris, France, following a group of young Americans as they explore the streets of Paris on a cool evening near the end of summer under a clear, starlit night. What will the night hold? Will they find love while walking on the cobblestone streets? One way or the other, the memories of their last night in Paris will be with them for the rest of their lives.
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We are very excited about the musical choices this year. The show will open with the piece Gymnopedies No. 1 by Erik Satie being played by accordion to set the mood of walking down a Parisian street with music flowing out of the cafes.
The first movement will be a compilation of three pieces - Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun by Claude Debussy, La Peri Fanfare by Paul Dukas, and An American in Paris by George Gershwin. The second and slow movement will feature the music of Clair de Lune by Debussy. The percussion feature will use melodies from Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet and closer will be the more modern Moondance by Van Morrison written in an up-tempo fashion similar to the version played by the Cadets drum and bugle corps. This will give us the opportunity to end the show with a more modern jazz influenced song which will foreshadow the young American's return home and should be a big hit with the audiences.​
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We are using the same marching band company as last year - Pulse Marching. Music writer Dan Duffield will once again be composing custom music for our band. Last year's show was very popular with the football audience and judges so we wanted to continue in that same direction. Our drill will be written by the same team as last year so we can expect similar visual ideas and levels. With the musical selections and visual elements, this show promises to be exciting for the audiences and should score well with the judges at our festivals.
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Due to the custom nature of the show, we will be receiving musical selections throughout the summer break, and when I receive them, I will post them at the bottom of this page.
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Show MP3's - please be aware that the recordings that we will receive this summer will be MIDI recordings which means they will not have real instruments that you will hear. In my experience, MIDI recordings do an OK job at giving you an idea of how the song will sound but real instruments will sound much better. As you know from last year's show, the final musical product was much different at the end of the season than the MP3's that we received. Live performances of the music are always much more exciting and effective.