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PASIC Marching Percussion FestivalBy Lauren Vogel Weiss
When PAS was organized in 1961, marching per-
cussion was quite rudimentary (pardon the pun!).
Drum lines of the ’60s consisted of three or four
snare drums, a matching number of tenor drums,
one or two bass drums, and a pair of cymbals—a
far cry from the 30- to 40-member ensembles of today. And
there
was no such thing as marching xylophones, let alone
5.0-octave
marimbas “grounded” in the pit.
PASIC ’85 marching festival
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Just as PAS evolved, so did marching percussion. The for-mation
of Drum Corps International (DCI) in 1972 show-cased the expanding
drum lines. By the end of that decade, timp-tom trios had morphed
into quads. Bass drum lines had three to four “tonal” pitches. The
development and widespread use of carriers allowed drum sections to
move more. And many drum lines had at least a set of marching bells
and a 2.5-octave marching xylophone, if not a 2.0-octave marching
marimba and a 2.5-octave marching vibe! As marching bands across
the country emulated the innovative drum lines of DCI, marching
percussion soon became an important part of the ensemble. But
unlike DCI—where the drum section had its own scoring category in
competitions—most marching bands judged these drum lines under the
music caption, along with wood-winds and brass. There was little or
no standard of comparison between different drum lines, nor any
specific feedback to assist in their improvement.
THE FIRST DRUM LINE CONTEST When Ward Durrett moved to the
Chicago area in the late 1970s, he began teaching marching
percussion at several high schools, including the well-known
Glenbrook North High School in North-brook, Illinois. “At that
time, the thought process was that percus-sion sections weren’t
getting much workable, usable info from marching band,” Durrett
recalls. “So Peter Herr, director of bands at Glenbrook North, and
I were trying to think of something where percussion students could
get a more valid input. Because the high school had recently opened
a new state-of-the-art auditorium, we came up with the idea of
putting marching drum lines on the new stage and offering them the
opportunity to perform and be assessed on their own merits. This
new contest would give percussionists a chance to find out what
other schools were doing, as well as be able to learn from them.
“Our first contest, in December of 1980, had only “two colleges and
five high schools,” he continues, “but it turned out to be a very
positive experience for everybody. The shows were the culmination
of marching season. Thanks to effective word of mouth, the next
year we had seven colleges and 13 high schools. We owe a great deal
to the Glenbrook North band parent organization for taking the risk
to support such an event, even though they didn’t make any money
the first year. But they stuck with it and, as they say, ‘The rest
is his-tory!’” Following the success of the Spartan Marching
Percussion Fes-
tivals in Northbrook, Illinois, Durrett—as-sisted by well-known
marching percussion specialist Fred San-ford—hoped to bring this
new concept to a national level. “Dur-ing the Texas Music Educators
Association convention in February of 1982,” remembers Durrett,
“Fred, Bob Houston [percussion instructor at East Texas State], Jay
Wanamaker [Chair of the PAS March-ing Committee at the time], and I
wanted to include it into the PAS convention in Dallas
the following November. Thanks to the additional and persistent
efforts of Bob Schietroma [host of that convention and percussion
instructor at North Texas State], we ‘sold’ the idea to PAS and
held the first national contest later that year.”
PASICS ’82–’87 The first PAS “March-ing Competition” was held at
PASIC ’82 in Dal-las on Sunday afternoon, Nov. 21. (This was back
when the convention con-tinued through Sunday; even the exhibits
were open until noon that day.) Durrett, who was the Marching
Percussion Coordinator for Slingerland at that time, was the
official “Competition Director,” and Fred Sanford served as the
first Master of Ceremonies, a position he would fill for the next
17 years. The contest was held in Stemmons Auditorium at the Loews
Anatole Hotel, an excellent venue for performers and audience
members alike. Twelve college drum lines from six states converged
on Dallas that weekend. “One of my favorite memories from all the
festivals was from that one,” Durrett recalls. “Western Illinois
University doing a halftime show at their ballgame on Saturday,
getting on a bus, driving all night, getting off the bus—no
sleep!—performing, coming in second, and getting back on the bus
and driving back to Macomb for class.” The University of
Southwestern Louisiana (now the University of Louisiana at
Lafayette) won that first contest with a score of 89.75. Judges for
the first contest were Rob Carson, Dennis DeLucia (his Bridgemen
drum line gave a demonstration at the convention the day before),
Marty Hurley, Carl Ruocco, Dan Spalding, and George Tuthill. Lauren
Vogel, who would assist Durrett with the contest for the next five
years, served as the tabulator, complete with calculator and carbon
paper (to provide “instant” recaps without the availabil-ity of a
copy machine). “We used the same general format as the Spartan
Festival,” Dur-rett explains, “except that we experimented with
different judging. We tried the Olympic system—throwing out the
highest and low-est score and averaging the rest—but that was a
dismal failure. We ended up going back to the system we used at the
Spartan Festival the following year in Knoxville.” To emphasize the
educational aspect of the new contest, PAS renamed it the “PAS
Marching Forum” in 1983, a title that would be used for the next
decade. The contest continued to be held on Sunday afternoon for
three more years: at the Knoxville Convention Center (PASIC ’83),
at the Power Center on the campus of the Uni-versity of Michigan
(PASIC ’84), and outdoors on the top level of the Getty Parking Lot
Structure at the Sheraton Universal Hotel in Los Angeles (PASIC
’85). “It was always an interesting adventure going from site to
site,” Durrett remembers. “At the Anatole it was easy because it
was on a stage in that marvelous auditorium. But we did it outside
in L.A. on Sunday morning, and one of the local residents called
the police! Fortunately, we only had five lines that year, so we
finished before it became too much of a problem.” The rules for the
contest also evolved over the years. For ex-Ward Durrett
Fred Sanford
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ample, PASIC ’85 was the second year in a row that North Texas
State University (now the Uni-versity of North Texas) won the PAS
title (on their way to a total of 14 national championships), but
it may be remem-bered as the year of the “UCLA belly dancers.” So
the following year, the rules were revised to state that each
performer in the ensemble—includ-ing dancers—must play a percussion
instrument. “The drum lines evolved very quickly from ’82, when
there was very little, if any, movement, to the point where the
col-lege groups, and eventually the more advanced high school
groups, were doing a lot of movement,” says Dennis DeLucia, who
judged the first two contests at PASIC. “The quality of playing
improved rather dramatically, especially at the university level
and with so many of the Texas groups. When we were in a location
with a lot of Texas schools, the general level was extremely high.”
As PAS celebrated its 25th anniversary at PASIC ’86 in Washing-ton,
D.C., the Marching Forum moved from Sunday to Friday. (It was not
practical to hold the event on Saturday, as that was the day most
colleges played their football games and the drum lines were part
of the halftime shows.) The Friday schedule has remained in effect
ever since. It was also the first year that PASIC appointed a local
marching coordinator, Marshall Maley. The PASIC ’86 march-ing event
was held at Lisner Auditorium, on the campus of George Washington
University. “It wasn’t a problem for the people who were involved
to get there,” explains Durrett, “but it was difficult getting the
non-marching people to attend. That was always an is-sue when we
selected the venues.” In the spirit of education, PASIC tried to
expose attendees to all types of percussion, including march-ing,
but the distance between venues sometimes made that a difficult
proposition. The following statement was printed in the PASIC ’86
program (including the boldface type): “Note! This is the fifth
annual PAS National Marching Percussion Forum. Competition open for
ob-servation to PASIC ’86 registrants, parents and friends. Please,
no noise or applause!” For anyone who has ever attended a PAS
marching event, this statement draws a chuckle, as audience
re-sponse is an important part of the marching activity. The
competition in Washington was also the first time that two previous
champions competed against each other: North Texas State’s use of
lighted drumsticks during its finale—along with dim-ming the lights
in the auditorium—brought the house down as they won their third
consecutive title and bested the University of South-western
Louisiana by less than a point. NTSU’s show was also the impetus
for another rule change: “Use of auditorium/stage lighting will be
prohibited.” “The next year was originally supposed to be at the
[St. Louis] Arch,” Durrett remembers, “but the reason it was moved
to the Scottish Rite Cathedral was because we had to deal with
three gov-ernment bodies—the Mississippi River Authority, the
National Park Service, and the city of St. Louis—to get permission
to use the facil-ity. When the original PASIC host, Pat Hanley,
passed away, there was no local person to spearhead all of it. I
don’t think people realize
Dennis DeLucia
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the hoops we had to jump through to make this happen year after
year.” (PAS did still hold a “March to the Arch” that year, where
participants played “Three Camps.”)
HIGH SCHOOL DIVISION After six years of organizing the marching
competition at PASIC, Durrett decided to take a break. Lauren
Vogel, who had worked with Ward on this event since its inception,
took over as Contest Director for PASIC ’88 in San Antonio. There
had been several inquiries from high school teachers in Texas about
participating in this event, so PAS decided to try a high school
divi-sion. Twelve high schools registered in September—the maximum
number the schedule would permit—although only nine lines actu-ally
competed in November. Ten college lines entered, but two had to
cancel due to last-minute scheduling conflicts. This was before the
widespread use of computers. All the com-munication, including
schedules—and then revised schedules—was done via regular mailings.
This was also before the national office or-ganized all the entries
and paperwork. Even the judges’ worksheets and scoresheets were
prepared by the contest director. San Antonio was also the first
location where a meeting was scheduled before the event to allow
the directors to see exactly where their groups would perform, as
well as where to unload and warm up. PASIC ’88 saw Morehead State
University win the first of its four titles in the college division
on Friday morning, beating former champion University of
Southwestern Louisiana (USL) by less than two points. (The
University of North Texas performed in exhibi-tion that year.) L.D.
Bell High School from Hurst, Texas won the first high school
division on Saturday morning. Following the high school
competition, there was an exhibition by the Old Guard Fife and Drum
Corps. This was also the first year that each participant received
a certificate, and Remo continued to give “drumhead awards”
(special certificates mounted in drumheads) to the winning schools,
as well as the first-ever caption awards for Best Snare Line, Tenor
Line, Bass Line, Cymbal Line, and Pit. Ward Durrett returned as
Contest Director for PASIC ’89 in Nashville. The Marching Forum was
held in Jackson Hall of the Tennessee Performing Arts Center. This
was also the first year that the scores were tabulated on a
computer! For the third time in the college division, two prior
winners competed against each other—defending champions Morehead
State University against three-time winner University of North
Texas. UNT won its fifth title. When asked if any lines stood out
in his memory from his years of judging and observing the
com-petition, Dennis DeLucia paused before replying, “Certainly,
North Texas was probably the most dramatically consistent and
effective, both in terms of how brilliantly written the programs
were and how well the kids were trained, and how well they played
ev-ery area, both battery and front ensemble. For me, the other
ensemble that stood out at the university
level was Morehead State. I thought they were magnificent for
sev-eral years. At the high school level, Marcus stands out in my
mind over the years as another one that has been brilliantly
written and consistently performed.” The next two conventions—one
on the East Coast and one on the West Coast—resulted in smaller
contests with no high school divi-sion. The Marching Forum at PASIC
’90 in Philadelphia, organized by Gus Barbaro and held at 12
Caesars, saw only four competing colleges. USL got a rematch of the
Washington, D.C. competition, losing to UNT by only half a point.
Tad Carpenter was the Contest Director for PASIC ’91 in Ana-heim.
Held next door to the Disneyland Hotel at the Pan Pacific Hotel,
five colleges competed, with UNT winning its third title in a row
and seventh overall. This resulted in yet another rule revision: at
the Marching Committee Meeting it was decided that (beginning in
1992) “a winner could only repeat as champions for three
con-secutive years before taking a year off from competition.
(Exhibition would be allowed.)” PASIC ’92 in New Orleans saw the
return of the High School Division with Marcus High School from
Flower Mound, Texas winning the first of its ten titles. The
competition was held in the Superdome, just a few blocks away from
the rest of the convention at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, where
Morehead State claimed the second of its four titles. Marty Hurley
served as the Local Marching Coordinator as well as the Contest
Director, assisted by Vogel. New Orleans was also the first time
that Al Moffat joined the contest as Stage Manager, a position he
has held for the past 20 years. And thanks to Moffat’s dedication,
the competition almost always stays on schedule!
PAS MARCHING PERCUSSION FESTIVAL When PASIC moved to Columbus in
1993, PAS decided to re-name the “Marching Forum”the “PAS Marching
Percussion Festi-val,” reflecting more of what the competition had
become over the years. Also, the term “festival” was a more
appealing term for young percussionists than “forum.” Jeff
Hartsough and Derrick Logozzo served as co-chairs of Field
Percussion for the local planning com-mittee. Thirteen college drum
lines competed, with UNT winning its eighth title. Battelle Hall
provided an excellent venue for the audi-ence to view the
performers from many angles. In 1994, PAS appointed Lauren Vogel
Weiss Chair of the March-ing Percussion Committee. This was the
first time that the Chair would coordinate the Marching Percussion
Festival with the local marching host. She continued as Chair and
Contest Director for the next three years. Mike Back was the local
marching host for PASIC ’94. The Col-lege Drum Line Division was
held at the Atlanta Civic Center on Friday morning, with UNT
winning its ninth title in 13 years. The High School Division, held
Friday evening, saw Marcus High School win its second championship.
That was the first year PAS charged a separate admission fee to the
Marching Percussion Fes-tival. Registered PASIC attendees could
attend the event as part of the convention, but parents and other
fans who had not registered for PASIC could buy a $5.00 ticket that
included admission to both the Marching Festival and the exhibit
area, which raised $1,625 for PAS. Atlanta was also the first time
members of the winning drum Lauren Vogel Weiss
Web ExtraView a list of winners and scores from every PAS
Marching Festival
atwww.pas.org/publications/September2011webextras.aspx
http://www.pas.org/publications/September2011webextras.aspx
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lines received special PAS Championship T-shirts, thanks to the
generous support of Pearl, in addi-tion to the other awards donated
by Remo. And for the third year in a row, Pearl donated “tro-phy
drums” to the win-ning lines. Most of the manufacturers of
march-ing equipment were given the opportunity to donate awards,
and the drum line T-shirts were rotated among the companies on a
yearly basis. The contest in Atlanta sparked another rule change.
After PASIC ’94, the rules included this: “No woodwind, no brass,
and no string instruments are allowed. Vocals will be allowed only
if the performer plays a percussion instrument for more than half
of the total performance time.” This “no clarinet rule” was due to
Stockbridge (Georgia) High School using two clarinets in its show
at PASIC ’94. Each rule infraction would be a 2-point penalty
(e.g., two clarinets would cost a group 4 points). PASIC ’95 was
held in Phoenix, and Paul Buyer served as the contest host. The
Drum Line Contest, held at Phoenix Symphony Hall, included six
colleges and nine high schools, along with an au-dience of over
1,500 people. The college division featured another championship
rematch, this one between Morehead State and UNT, with Morehead
coming out on top by only a quarter-of-a-point. The high school
division also featured a close contest, with Marcus win-ning its
third title by defeating Texas rival Plano Senior High School by
only a half point. Due to the close contests, the Marching
Com-mittee added another rule: “In the case of a numerical tie for
first place, the individual/school with the most number of
first-place votes will be declared the winner. If it is still a
tie, whoever has the highest execution/performance marks will be
declared the winner.” PASIC ’95 was also the beginning of a new
tradition for the festi-val: a separate program distributed at the
venue. It included sched-ules for all the marching competitions as
well as pictures and bios for the judges. Special recognition for
this “mini program” goes to Shawn Brown, who served as PAS Director
of Publications at that time. The 1996 PAS Marching Percussion
Festival had one of its two most successful contests in the
festival’s history. Thanks to the loca-tion in Nashville, along
with the local marching coordinators George Barrett and Julie
Davila, PASIC ’96 welcomed 18 college drum lines and 13 high school
lines to the Nashville Convention Center. (The other festival that
saw 31 lines perform was PASIC 2000 in Dallas.) This was the first
time that PAS rented bleachers in an ex-hibit hall venue so the
audience could better view the competition. Due to the large number
of competing lines, PAS added approxi-mately 1,000 new members in
1996. And many students brought their parents, so there was a
definite increase in foot traffic through the exhibit hall. In
1997, Julie Davila was appointed Chair of the Marching Per-cussion
Committee, a position she held for the next ten years. She
continued the tradition of serving as both chair of the committee
and director of the festival. And she was the only contest director
who also had marched as a member of a competing (and winning) drum
line: the University of North Texas in 1985, 1986, and 1987!
“When you chair the Marching Committee, you don’t get to at-tend
much of the actual convention at all,” Davila laughs. “The office
and administrative staff were now helping with the logistics of
getting supplies, organizing the entries, and drawing for
perfor-mance placement. However, the majority of the actual
hands-on running of the event was coordinated with the help of [PAS
Direc-tor of Event Production & Marketing] Jeff Hartsough,
[Graphic Designer] Hillary Henry, myself, and any committee members
who volunteered to help. The position of Marching Committee Chair
requires a large amount of organizational time leading up to the
convention and almost a complete sacrifice of time during the
event. In addition to the chair’s large commitment of time and
effort, the members of the Marching Committee—some of the
activity’s lead-ing authorities in marching percussion—have always
been generous to volunteer their time and expertise to adjudicate
the Festival and Individuals competitions to be sure that the PASIC
experience is positive for all the students.” Over the years, many
marching percussion teachers and play-ers volunteered their time to
judge the drum line events. Without a separate budget to pay for
adjudicators, the festival depended on these people who would
already be at the convention. Some of the more frequent
adjudicators were Tad Carpenter (who judged drum
line contests 13 times, not including Individuals), Matt Savage
(11), Jeff Prosperie (10), Rob Carson and John Wooton (8), and
Scott Johnson and Jeff Moore (7). In 1996, and for several years
after that, PAS was able to pay each adjudicator a small stipend
for his or her time and expenses. Only six drum lines traveled to
California for PASIC ’97, where the festival was held in the arena
of the Anaheim Convention Center with Carol Carpenter serving as
the local marching host. Eleven drum lines attended PASIC ’98 at
the Orange County Convention
Julie Davila
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Center in Orlando, where Jeff Moore was the local marching host.
UNT won its eleventh PAS Championship, and Plano Senior High School
defeated four-time winner Marcus High School for its first national
title. PASIC ’99 returned to Columbus and the Battelle Hall venue,
but drew only six competing schools. Donnie Gray organized this
18th edition of the festival. The high school division was again
won by Marcus, which claimed its fifth national title that decade.
This was also the first time since its inception that Fred Sanford
did not serve as Master of Ceremonies; his health did not permit
him to at-tend the convention, and he passed away on January 23,
2000. His spirit lives on at the PASIC Festival through the award
for highest overall ensemble score (regardless of division or
category) named in his memory. This traveling award was created to
honor Sanford for his passion for the artform and his dedication to
the marching com-munity and PAS. “The Festival has had to go
through some changes over the years,” Davila says. “With the
convention always being held in the fall during the football and
marching band competition seasons, there are extra challenges to
keep the participation strong. Addition-ally, WGI has become a
strong influence in the country, with many schools participating in
indoor drum line shows during the winter and spring months. To help
meet the challenges of schools across the country trying to decide
whether to compete in the fall at PASIC or the spring at WGI, the
Marching Committee decided to implement a standstill division at
the Festival. Schools could now perform their marching band show
music at PASIC and be adjudicated by a terrif-ic judging panel.
This would help keep kids and programs involved with PAS without
feeling pressured to try to get an entire new show ready for
competition in addition to their marching band show. “We also
implemented a Small Ensemble division,” she adds. “The Marching
Percussion Committee continues to work hard by brain-storming ways
to keep the festival a strong entity at PASIC. PAS and the Marching
Committee’s first and foremost mission is to the students. The
educational value of attending a PASIC is irreplace-able.”
PASIC 2000 The final PASIC of the 20th century brought the
Marching Per-cussion Festival back to Texas in one of its most
successful contests, again featuring 31 competing ensembles. Kennan
Wylie served as the local coordinator for the events held at the
Dallas Convention Center. His Marcus High School drum line won its
sixth National Championship at PASIC 2000 while UNT added its
twelfth title. This was also the first year of a separate high
school “standstill”
division (compared to the “marching” division), which was won by
L.D. Bell H.S. (who had won the first high school division at PASIC
’88). The PASIC 2000 Marching Percussion Festival introduced
audiences to a new Master of Ceremonies, Dennis DeLucia, who holds
the position to this day. He was assisted in Dallas by local ra-dio
announcer Dan Potter, who some may know as the voice of DCI
contests in the South. Is there a difference between judging a show
and announcing it? “It’s easy to disengage while emceeing,” DeLucia
replies. “I can say my piece, sit down, listen and let my mind
wander. I try not to, especially since most of the groups are so
good that my mind doesn’t wander. But when you’re judging, you have
to be focused all the time because you have a decision to make. As
an emcee, I tend to not focus on any one thing in particular; I
just step back and try to absorb the totality of what’s being
presented. Do I like it or not? Is it well written or not? Is it
well played?” Despite the emphasis on scores and winners, the
Marching Per-cussion Festival was achieving all of its original
goals and then some. It allowed drum lines to receive direct
feedback from leading march-ing authorities—each school received an
audio tape of comments in addition to scoresheets—and to see what
others were doing in the genre. And a healthy dose of competition
pushed the composers, ar-rangers, and teachers to new levels as
they tried to outperform each other. The Marching Percussion
Festival returned to the Nashville Con-vention Center for PASIC
2001, featuring six colleges and twelve high schools (in two
categories). Middle Tennessee State University won its first
national drum line championship, and Marcus H.S. won its third in a
row (making it ineligible to compete in 2002), for a total of seven
titles. Hometown favorite Father Ryan H.S. won the High School
Standstill Division. The Marching Percussion Festival celebrated
its 20th anniversary at PASIC 2002 in Columbus with a new category:
Small Ensembles. Two colleges and two high schools entered small
ensembles, along with seven other schools in the college division
plus two high schools in standstill and three high schools in the
marching category. The 2003 festival was held in the Louisville
Gardens arena with 25 drum lines (14 high school and 11 college),
placing it in the “top 5” for participation. Unusually balmy
weather for Louisville in November allowed drum lines to warm up in
an adjoining outdoor plaza, en-tertaining local businesspeople
during their lunch hour and drawing coverage on local TV stations.
PASIC 2004 brought the festival (and 20 drum lines) back to
Nashville, where Marcus H.S. won its ninth championship. The
festival returned to Columbus (this time in an exhibit hall) at
PASIC
2005, where 12 drum lines (nine high school and three college)
competed. That year the Fred Sanford Award (for the highest overall
ensemble score) went to East Tennessee State University for its
small ensemble pre-sentation. Two of the next three festivals were
in Texas at the Austin Conven-tion Center: PASIC 2006 brought 30
competing drum lines to the Lone Star state. Texas Christian
University won its first PAS championship in the college division,
while perennial powerhouse UNT brought only two small ensembles
(which placed first and second). It was a tight race in the high
school marching drum line divi-sion; Marcus H.S. and Flower Mound
H.S. tied, but because of the tiebreak The University of North
Texas won the first Fred Sanford award at PASIC 2002.
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rule (counting the number of first-place votes), Flower Mound
won the first of its two titles (the other was at PASIC 2007). The
Fred Sanford Award that year went to Georgetown (Texas) High School
for its standstill performance. “Whenever the convention made it in
to a part of the country where we knew there was already a pool,
the Marching Festival was always going to be successful,” explains
Durrett. “It was always going to be big in Tennessee, but it was
always unbelievably big any-where in Texas.” In 2007, PAS appointed
Neal Flum Interim Chair of the March-ing Percussion Committee, a
position he would be given on a per-manent basis in 2008. That year
saw 29 competing units converge in Austin (22 high school drum
lines, including two from Marcus and two from Colleyville Heritage,
and seven colleges, plus one in exhibition). Colleyville Heritage
High School (Colleyville, Texas) narrowly defeated Marcus for its
second championship, while UNT captured its 14th title in the
festival’s history. Prior to the Awards ceremony, longtime PAS
judge Scott Johnson (perhaps better known as the Director of
Percussion for the World Champion Con-cord Blue Devils Drum &
Bugle Corps) played the snare drum solo he performed in 1978 when
he won DCI Individuals. “That was a particularly wonderful moment
for me,” Flum re-members, “because Scott taught me in the Blue
Devils when I played tenors in 1983.” Flum also added more
exhibitions the next two years: Tim Jackson performed a multi-tenor
solo and Matt Sav-age played a snare solo as well as a multiple
marching percussion piece in 2009. And last year, The Old Guard
Fife and Drum Corps performed. When PASIC was scheduled for
Indianapolis in 2009, the format of the marching festival had to
change. “This area—Indiana, Ohio, Michigan—has really become the
heartbeat of the indoor WGI season,” explains Dennis DeLucia.
“Those groups are no longer willing to put together an indoor show
for November. So we had to do something different and change the
format dramatically to more of a clinic setting where there is
input from one classically-oriented percussion clinician and one or
two marching-oriented people. The scope is much broader now that
there are no scores any longer. I find it fascinating.” PAS
appointed an ad hoc committee consisting of DeLucia, Jeff
Hartsough, Michael Kenyon, Don Click, and Neal Flum to rethink the
Marching Festival structure and search for ways to increase the
educational focus of the festival when PASIC is hosted in the
Mid-west. “We met several times to develop some ideas about how we
might increase the level of participation in the Marching
Percussion Festival,” says Flum. “One of the ideas, contributed by
Dennis, that came from our discussions was to have an interactive
format where groups could come and perform whatever they wanted
with what-ever instrumentation they wanted. They would receive
input from clinicians—not just marching clinicians but also people
from outside the world of marching percussion.” The first
interactive marching clinic—almost a master class for drum
lines—was held at PASIC 2009 with DeLucia and She-e Wu working with
four high school ensembles. The following year, six high schools
participated in the interactive session, which was evalu-ated by
Tom Aungst and Michael Burritt.
INDIVIDUALS Another important aspect of the Marching Percussion
competition at PASIC is the Individuals (or solo) contest. First
added for college students in 1983, it was coordinated during its
early years by Lauren Vogel, who had won DCI’s “Best Individual
Keyboard” in 1982 as a member of the Phantom Regiment Drum and
Bugle Corps. She wanted to offer that competitive opportunity to
members of PAS, creating another reason to join the organization.
The first “Individuals Competition for Marching Instruments”
was held on Sunday morning at PASIC ’83 in Knoxville. With only
one category, snare drummer John Wooton, then a stu-dent at the
University of Southwestern Louisiana, was selected as the win-ner.
The following year, there were categories for snare, tenor, and
key-board. North Texas State University student Ken-nan Wylie won
the first of his three snare drum titles (the others were in 1985
and 1987), Leif Marwede from Michigan State won the first tenor
title, and Tim Tiedemann won the first PAS keyboard title. The
timpani category was added in 1987. The list of college students
who have won a PAS Individual Award is almost a “Who’s Who” in the
field of percussion. Besides the aforementioned Wooton (now the
Director of Percussion Stud-ies at the University of Southern
Mississippi) and Wylie (who has been teaching at Marcus High School
for 20 years), some of the Individual winners include: Andrew Beall
(Keyboard 2001, Manhat-tan School of Music), composer, performer
and current New York PAS Chapter President; David Bergman (Timpani
2001, UNT),
Neal Flum
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U.S. Military Academy Band; Dr. Robert Bridge (Keyboard 1985 and
1986, NTSU), Professor of Percussion at Onondaga Com-munity
College; Tim Jackson (Tenor 2005, Ohio State Univer-sity),
four-time DCI Multi-Tenor Champion and current Battery Coordinator
for the Bluecoats Drum & Bugle Corps; JJ Pipitone (Tenor 1990,
Morehead State University), Percussion Instructor at Grapevine
(Texas) High School and DCI Judge; Jeff Prosperie (Snare 1988,
Louisiana State University), USMA “Hellcats” and former Director of
Percussion Studies at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette;
Jeff Queen (Snare 1994 and 1995, UNT), original cast member of the
Tony-award-winning Broadway show Blast; and She-e Wu (Keyboard
1991, UNT), Associate Professor of Percussion at Northwestern
University. Many past Individual winners have gone on to teach at
the high school level, preparing young students to follow in their
footsteps. Listing oneself as the winner of a PAS Indi-vidual title
is a valuable credential on resumes and bios of dozens of
percussionists across the country. One other well-known PASIC
Individuals winner is Julie Sut-ton, a student at NTSU who won the
College Keyboard category in 1987. Better known today as Julie
Davila, her recollection of that PASIC is still strong. “I have
terrific memories of the year I per-formed in the snare line with
the University of North Texas drum line and won mallet
individuals,” she recalls. “I came off the stage after performing
my mallet solo in exhibition at the conclusion of the festival, and
I’ll never forget how it felt when Fred Sanford said, ‘You just
played your ass off! Great job!’ I had idolized him through my high
school and college years, and it was always a great feeling to know
that even though he was the announcer for the festival, he was
always watching and rooting for you.” By 1985, the Individuals
contest was moved from Sunday to Saturday, and then the following
year to Thursday, where it has re-mained ever since. In 1994, High
School Individuals were added to the festival, with 15 competitors
that first year. A Rudimental Snare category was added in 1994 but
only drew one competitor its first year. A Multiple Percussion
category was added to the College Divi-sion in 1996 and reinstated
in 2010. Thanks to Vogel’s industry connections from her years at
Lone Star Percussion, she was able to convince more companies to
donate awards to the contest as the years went by. Now, in addition
to the drum lines receiving trophies as well as special T-shirts
and sticks for each member, Individual winners also received a
prize. Vic Firth contributed a stick bag full of mallets and sticks
to the winners. By 2001, over 90 students, representing almost two
dozen states, competed in Individuals. At PASIC 2004, the number of
Individuals grew to 100 for the first time—58 high school students
and 42 col-lege, representing 25 states. PASIC 2005 saw the first
international entries—three snare drummers from the University of
Adelaide in South Australia. And the Individuals contest reached
its peak one year later in Austin where 107 individuals (65 high
school and 42 college) representing 21 states competed at PASIC
2006.
PASIC 2011 “This year we will have the interactive format
again,” Neal Flum explains. “The guest clinicians will be Michael
McIntosh and Robert van Sice. After the morning session, we are
scheduled to have exhi-bitions by Oklahoma State University, the
University of Massachu-setts, and the Madison Scouts Drum &
Bugle Corps, followed by exhibitions from the high school
Individual award winners. We’ve added a second format—an
‘invitational’—to complete the rest of the day. We sent invitations
to various highly respected marching percussion programs around the
United States, and we hope to have them perform and be evaluated by
three outstanding clinicians: Julie Davila, Bret Kuhn, and Tom
Rarick. After each group performs, one of the clinicians will make
comments to the students. At the end of that session, we’ll have
the college Individual competition winners
followed by a clinic/performance from Rhythm X, a past champion
in WGI’s Independent World classification.”
CONCLUSION Ward Durrett puts the PAS Marching Percussion
Festival in perspective. “It’s an important link in the evolution
of the indoor competitive activity as it exists today. Having those
early contests at PASIC gave the concept credibility. Marching
percussion is a legiti-mate ensemble art form, and it involves so
many more young people than other avenues of performance. The
Marching Percussion Fes-tival is a major part of the convention.
Those of us involved in the beginning saw its value early on and
worked hard to keep it a part of PAS.” “The Marching Percussion
Festival has always been a critical part of the overall PASIC
experience,” adds Julie Davila. “While there are several areas of
interest for young people at the convention, marching percussion
has always been a leader for that younger de-mographic. The
Festival, as well as the marching clinics and the In-dividuals
competition, has served as a ‘hook’ for many students and teachers
through the years. The Festival is the best way to involve a large
number of high school and college students. Not only do they enjoy
the privilege of performing at PASIC, they also have full ac-cess
to all the other concerts and clinics throughout the duration of
the convention. The diversity of PASIC and the additional exposure
to all genres of percussion can motivate students to explore
numer-ous areas of percussion, broadening their interests and
abilities.” On behalf of literally thousands of participants in the
PAS March-ing Percussion Festival over the years, “thank you” to
all the volun-teer leaders, judges, committee chairs and members,
manufacturers, artists, and clinicians for their contributions in
creating this impor-tant component of PASIC and PAS history. PN