With a donation of 64 brass instruments and members attempting to reach fundraising goals, the Bakersfield College drumline has evolved into the Golden Empire Drum and Bugle Corps.
The group, with Tim Heasley as corp director, would like to earn membership into Drum Corps International, known as DCI. The BC drumline, formed in 2009, officially became a drum and bugle corps this semester. An anonymous donation to the BC Foundation provided the brass instruments, and members have to meet fundraising goals of $11,000 to cover costs, such as food, charter buses, and travel, of attending shows on the road.
Because they’re a new drum corps, the BC group is still in the process of being evaluated by DCI. DCI will determine which competitions they can be in and whether or not they can compete in them.
The Golden Empire is still scheduled to go to eight competitions this year, starting with June 20 in Clovis and July 13 in Bellflower. The rest of the dates are still to be determined until DCI can finish its evaluation. Heasley said that, at this point, none of these competitions are out of state; the main focus is to have a small tour that is manageable. Within the next five to six years down the road, the Golden Empire would like to travel out of state.
DCI is similar to marching band, but it is more of a club sport version of marching band. There are a few key differences when it comes to DCI, such as no woodwinds, only brass, percussion, and color guard. The competitions occur during the summer rather than the fall like in marching band.
BC’s corps consists of members who are high school freshmen to age 22. Their goal is to increase membership to have enough people to play the 64 brass instruments. They currently have 45 brass players.
The group practices once a month, which is referred to as camp weekends, that involves Friday night, all day Saturday, and part of Sunday. There are six blocks of rehearsals that are three hours long.
They plan to have this every year and also spread the word out to high school students as well as people who want to better their music skills.
The process to be in the program was to pre-register on its website, which is geperformingarts.org. They also held auditions during December and are still holding auditions for people who are still interested.
According to Heasley, the expectation out of the students is for one to get better at their instruments but also to develop skills that are applicable to other things. Responsibilities, communication, discipline, and good moral skills are lessons that the members get out of this, he said.
To help make this possible, there are about 20 people involved. They’ve come from teachers in the Kern High School District, students who are studying music at Cal State and people who have been in other drum and bugle corps.