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DrumSpirit Percussion Ensemble from Dadizele kept up Belgian and European standards on Saturay in Dayton - Ohio. During the WGI World Championships for percussion, the Belgians ended in ninth place in the Independent Open Class.

DrumSpirit came twelfth in the Prelims, but managed to score over two points higher in the Finals and beat competitors Legends, Ancient City and Bakersfield College. The result is ninth place with 90.325 points. In the Visual caption, DrumSpirit dropped some points, but that was more than made up in the Musiccaption where the Belgians tied fourth place.

Cadets Winter Percussion won the Independent Open Class (96.725). Pioneer Indoor defeated Valley Independent Percussion in the finals and came second (94.663). In the Independent World Class Pulse Percussion became champions. The Scholastic World Class was won by Dartmouth HS.

All performances during the IPE European Championships, last Sunday in Wevelgem - Belgium, are now available in the DCE Video Vault. Subscribers of the DCE Video Vault have access to all videos. Short previews have been added too and can be watched without having to log in.

Eighteen video clips of both Prelims and Finals at the IPE European Championships have been added in HD quality. Subscribers to the DCE Video Vault can watch the full clips. Those who do not have a subscription yet can watch a 45 second preview of all clips.

No subscription yet? Subscribe for only € 19.95 per year, and get access to over a hundred DCE and IPE clips. You can join the DCE Video Vault at dce.videovault.eu.

This year, the German Philipp Schüßler is the drum major of Beatrix Drum & Bugle Corps from Hilversum. He follows in the footsteps of Jade Geleijnse. 

Schüßler began his drum corps career in 1997 at Fidele Vogelsanger and then marched with Wölper Löwen, Boston Crusaders and The Cadets. With the latter he became world champion at Drum Corps International. As a staff member, he worked with Con Spirito, Wölper Löwen, Starriders, The Devils, De Rijnmondband and Beatrix. Schüßler will be the 25th drum major of the Dutch corps.

“Beatrix is delighted this year to be able to add Philipp to the list of drum majors that we are proud to have had and wishes him good luck and lots of fun,” stated the corps. Beatrix is still looking for a second drum major.

Schüßler is not the only international drum major in a Dutch corps. Earlier, Juliana from Middelburg announced that the Belgian Shana Beernaert will lead the corps this year.

This year’s European indoor percussion titles go to Sweden, Austria and France. GOT Motion won the title at the IPE European Championships 2014 in Wevelgem on Sunday. Newcomers MDC Drumline Unik Star Concert won the A Class and Concert Class respectively.

Eleven indoor percussion units from eight countries competed with each other in the sports hall De Vlaschaard in Wevelgem - Belgium on Sunday. GOT Motion took the title in the Open Class. Their performance was rewarded with a score of 79.83 from the IPE/DCE judges. That was 1.33 points above their great rivals Unik Star from Hellemes. The Italian yMe Indoor Percussion came third with 70.83 points.

MDC Drumline from Austria won the A Class (78.00), participating in the competition of Indoor Percussion Europe for the first time. The Dutch Harpe Davids took second place and scored 75.50 points. Mór Blue from Ireland, which was in fourth place in the Prelims and had some problems with the sound system, came back strong in the Finals and took third place (66.00). The British Liberty Drum Corps finished fourth with 63.83 points.

Unik Star Concert made ​​their debut at the IPE European Championships. The concert ensemble was able to bring in the Concert Class title on their first participation, with a strong lead over the competition (77.50). Evolution, from the same country, came second (64.75), followed by Beverly Percussion Ensemble from Belgium (59.50) and New Spirit from France (49.00)

300 indoor percussion fans witnessed this seventh edition of the IPE European Championships. All performances of the day will soon be available on the DCE Video Vault.

Eleven new CGN champions were honoured in a crowded Indoor Sports Centre Eindhoven last weekend. In front of a sold-out grandstand, guards and indoor percussion units showed the best of themselves on the contest floor.

Beatrix became champion in the World Class, and the Open Class title went to The Pride Open. The A-Class was quite surprisingly won by Avant Courir A. In the Junior Class, The Pride Junior had been the strongest corps all season and won the title. The Cadet Class was won by Avant Courir Cadets and the Trinity Cadets topped the Kids Class.

In percussion there were fireworks as well. In the Open Class, after a very exciting Prelims, Jubal ultimately took top honours. In the A-Class NFPC was the strongest. In the Prep Classes, DrumSquad and Premier were the only participants in their Classes. The Thai Max Percussion Theatre performed a show in the World Class that had the audience on the edge of their seats from beginning to end. They received a standing ovation.

All recaps and scores are published on www.colorguard.org.

The performances from the IPE Championships 2014 will soon be available in the DCE Video Vault. Subscribers of the DCE Video Vault can view all the shows for free. The European championships for indoor percussion will take place this Sunday in the Belgian town of Wevelgem.

Both the Prelims and the Finals of the indoor percussion event will be recorded ​​with a high camera and later made available in the DCE Video Vault. “Indoor Percussion Europe has long been a strategic partner of DCE, and it seemed a good idea to both of us to work together in this area,” says Marco Janssen from DCE. Erwin van Gemert from Indoor Percussion Europe adds: “This way, we can offer the members of our participanting units a wonderful opportunity to watch their own performances back online in HD quality."

The IPE Championships will take place in Wevelgem on Sunday. Eleven units from eight European countries will appear at the starting line, and the Individuals & Ensembles are also held as part of the event. The doors of the Vlaschaard hall will open at 10:00 am. Tickets are available at the entrance, groups with more than ten people will get a discount off the regular ticket price.

Band Director of 58 years standing Hubert Magee has announced his retirement from the position as Band Director of Mullingar Town Band. His daughter Kim, who has been assistant director and field commander of the band's show corps Celtic Crusaders for a number of years now, has been appointed Band Director of Mullingar Town Band.

Upon being advised of his decision, the Committee of Mullingar Town Band on behalf of all the membership, has acknowledged Hubies exceptional distinguished service to Mullingar Town Band by bestowing upon him the life time honour of Band Director Emeritus. Kim Magee takes up the baton as the first female Band Director of Mullingar Town Band and brings a vast wealth of expertise and experience to her new post.

Mullingar Town band was founded as a Holy Family Confraternity Band in 1879. When Hubie became director in 1957 the band had fallen to just 4 members. Today Mullingar Town band is recognized as one of the most successful musical organisations in Ireland with a membership of over 150 between trainee classes, marching band and concert band. There is no doubt that Hubies incredible drive and dedication has been instrumental to the bands success. The band continue to live by his motto, to Educate, to Entertain, and to Elevate.

The Kidsgrove Scouts are the new WGUK Champions. Last Saturday, the debuting guard stayed ahead of its biggest competitor, Mayflower at the 2014 WGUK Championships in Stoke on Trent.

Mayflower won the WGUK Open Class Prelims, but Kidsgrove were the better unit in Finals. The guard scored 86.13 points, 0.25 points ahead of the guard from Billericay. Kidsgrove topped the captions Design Analysis and General Effect, while Mayflower took Equipment and Movement. Last year's Open Class champions Oracle came in third (80.50), and the Southern Knights ended in fourth place (77.00). Alliance came sixth (72.25) and Avengers closed the ranks in seventh place (68.88).

The Southern Knights became champions in the A Class and Junior Class, while South West Academy won the Cadet Class. 35 winter guard units entered the competition floor this year, plus two international participants during the season: Passie from The Netherlands and Mozaic from France.

For years, some Dutch corps have brought along a solid crowd of supporters to the DCE European Championships. This year, the German corps Starriders is also taking this initiative. If enough fans sign up, an extra bus will drive from Bad Münder to Kerkrade.

The Starriders offer a package for 60 Euros including the bus ride and a ticket. The bus will go if at least 40 people come along to the Parkstad Limburg Stadium. “A good number of people have already signed up,” Carsten Achilles of the Starriders writes on Facebook. There are still a few spaces available. Achilles therefore urges supporters of the corps to sign up quickly to experience a great day with the corps.

In addition to the Starriders, Juliana from Middelburg, Beatrix from Hilversum and Jubal from Dordrecht are also putting on an extra bus ride to allow as many fans as possible to enjoy their shows.

Their site has long been off the air, and the latest update on Facebook is more than two years old. It looks like that the platform Marching Bands of Europe is no longer in existence.

Marching Bands of Europe (MBE) was a platform and partnership between several national music organisations in Europe. MBE represented organisations like the IMSB (Italy), the British Federation of Youth Marching Band Organisations, the WMC and Unisono/Kunstfaktor (The Netherlands), and the aim was to increase the exchange of cultural knowledge and to promote the marching band activity in Europe.

In a previous inquiry from Drumcorps.org uk on the status of the MBE, a spokesman for one of the organisations was unable to provide a definitive answer. The organisation itself was not aware of the fact that the MBE site had been off air for some time. “We'll just have a look into it,” the spokesman said at the time. The website has not come back online since.

Mark Gjaltema and Talitha van de Wijngaard will travel to Poland next month to host a workshop on marching and visual. They are helping the Polish Wood & Brass Band Goleniow to grow in the direction of the marching band style.

The band Goleniow has visited the Rasteder Musiktage several times and the staff of the band recently attended a workshop by MMC Oldenburg to see how things work in the marching band world. The staff of Goleniow has expressed the wish to move towards this style.

Words were soon turned into actions and Gjaltema and Van de Wijngaard, both boasting a substantial track record in drum corps, were willing to share their experience in drum corps of marching, visual and guard with Goleniow. The two experts from the Netherlands will travel to the city of Goleniów in northwestern Poland in the first weekend of April.

"I think it's good for the drum corps activity that staff members of DCE corps help colleagues in other parts of Europe to give them a feel of the drum corps activity", said Gjaltema. “Who knows, we may see them on the European contest fields in future.”

2014 marks the 30th anniversary of the formation of Concord, Sheffield, UK. To celebrate on Saturday the 11th of October 2014 the alumni/members are hosting a celebration evening at the first class 'Inox Dine' at the University of Sheffield.

"This event promises to be a fantastic get together for all members, staff, alumni, friends and supporters through the years", says James Salt, Chair of Governors. The evening will include lots of reminiscing, memorabilia including videos, photographs and displays, live music from the Cookin Pots jazz swing band, featuring Concord alumni Jem Hewitt, a pie and peas supper, 80s disco and late bar.

This is all included in the ticket price (£10.00 if purchased before the end of August, £12.00 if purchased from September until the 10th of October, £15.00 on the door and £7.00 for under 16. Family tickets are not available online, but can be purchased from the organising team (alumni@concord.org.uk for more details). This event is not intended to make a profit but if it does proceeds will be split between a cancer charity and Concord Youth Music.

More information can be found on Facebook.

The Drum Corps Netherlands competition will be managed by DCE. In consultation between the managements of both organisations, DCE has decided to take over the responsibility of the Dutch drum corps organisation. This organisational change will not have impact on the contests or the corps.

The board of Drum Corps Netherlands had long been looking to expand in order to achieve desired innovations and to professionalise matters further. So far, it had not succeeded in getting more people on board. DCE then decided the help its certified partner. The management of DCE will take over the administrative duties of DCN.

Drum Corps Europe would like to express its warm thanks to the board of DCN for the hard work that they have put into the Dutch drum corps activity. DCN chairman Kees Bourquin started the job in 2005 as a project manager working from DCE. “As DCE, we had jumped into a hole to boost European activity, and DCN had to expand the Dutch competition,” said DCE Chairman Marcel Matthijsse. “The men have put in a lot of hard work and put the DCN Finals on the map as an independent event.”

DCE will now see how the activity in mainland Europe can continue to grow and professionalise. Corps that have questions about the changes can of course contact DCE.

Drum Corps Netherlands will have a well-filled line-up this season. The Dutch drum corps organisation is welcoming sixteen corps to the 2014 competition.

Hibernation is coming to an end, and the first corps are already back on the training field, busy working on their new product for this summer. Drum Corps Netherlands reports that most registrations are now in. The result is five participants in the Junior Class and eleven in the Premier Class.

This season, the Junior Class will consist of Confetti, Johan Friso, Jong Beatrix, Jong Jubal and Jong-Holland Juniors. This year’s Premier Class will consist of: Beatrix, Blue Diamonds, Con Spirito, Heartliner, Jong Holland, Jubal, Juliana, Spirit of 52, Spirit of Music, Starriders and Wölper Löwen. As in previous years, Germany is well represented in the DCN competition this year.

The contests are on 24th May in Roosendaal, 28th June in Huizen and 13th September (DCN Championships) in Dordrecht. Ticket sales will start on 1st April.

Drum Corps United Kingdom has announced the corps that have registered so far for the 2014 season. At least fourteen corps will corps will participate this summer. The following corps have registered:

Open Class
37th Kingswood, Bristol
Black Knights, Gravesend
Cadence, Surrey & Berkshire
Kidsgrove Scouts Kidsgrove, Staffordshire
Liberty Northampton, Northamptonshire
Nexus Biggleswade & Bedford, Bedfordshire
Revolution Show Corps, Queensbury
Spirit Of Coventry, Coventry
Staffordshire Knights, Newcastle-under-Lyme
The Company, Chesterfield
The Pacemakers, St Marys Cray

Junior Class
Black Knights Cadets, Gravesend
Concord AllStars, Sheffield
Thurrock Marching Brass, Thurrock

Associate Member
Commodores, Poynton

As well as the registered members there are also corps that will be making 'guest' appearances, either in exhibition or in full competition, at shows during the season. All four contests prior to the British Championships in September have excellent entry levels with between 10 and 12 corps scheduled to take part in each one.

Information on the DCUK season 2014 can be found at www.dcuk.org.uk.

Mosson Drum & Bugle Corps has unfortunately opted out of the DCE European Championships. The Italian corps announced that, due to internal problems, it has been forced to make this painful decision.

In previous years, Mosson Drum & Bugle Corps was a regular participant at the DCE European Championships. Last year, the corps finished in sixteenth place. According to Mosson, the corps is going through a difficult period right now, due to economic and internal circumstances. That is why the hard and painful decision has been made not to participate in the European Championships in Kerkrade this year.

Drum Corps Europe regrets the decision, and wishes Mosson every success. "We hope to see them again next year", said DCE Chairman Marcel Matthijsse. Because there were no corps on the waiting list for this year, there will not be a replacement for Mosson. That brings the number of participants in the DCE Championships to twenty corps.

Jubal Indoor Percussion won the Independent Marching Open Class at the European contest of Winter Guard International last Saturday. The corps from Dordrecht surpassed DrumSpirit, who were strongest in the Prelims.

While Jubal was slow to start in the first Dutch percussion contest of the season, ending in last place, at the WGI Regional the unit finished at the top of the rankings. The Prelims score was good enough for second place, but in the evening Jubal earned three extra points which won them gold. After its victory in the Prelims, DrumSpirit from Dadizele had to settle for a place lower down on the podium.

And there were more shifts. Beatrix from Hilversum made a huge leap of nearly eight points between the Prelims and the Finals. This meant that the unit climbed from fifth to third place. The number three in the Prelims, European X, had to make do with fifth place in the Finals.

Percussion Unlimited also could not hold its Prelims place and dropped from fourth to sixth place in the Finals. As a result, the percussion group from Almere switched with Unik Star from Hellemmes which received 6.05 in Prelims. yMe Indoor Percussion from Carnate in Italy finished seventh.

The Independent Marching A Class was won by Advendo Percussion Ensemble from Nijverdal. Drumsquad from Dokkum was the only participant in the Prep Class, and Unik Star Concert debuted in the Independent Concert Open Class. All scores and recaps have been published by Color Guard Netherlands on www.colorguard.org.

Despite many hosting preparations that have been made by the Heartliner to set up a contest, only Millennium Drum & Bugle Corps from Italy showed interest. So due to lack of interest of corps, Heartliner regret to announce the cancellation of the drum corps show in Ludwigshafen 2014.

Uwe Baum, director of marketing at Heartliner is disappointed that the event will not take place this year: "We have one of the best locations for a drum corps show and the full support of the mayor of Ludwigshafen. With more than 200 advertising spaces for posters, the local television and radio stations, as well as the city magazine LU LIFE, which is printed with a circulation of 300.000 copies per quarter, the Heartliner could effortlessly fill the hall or the stadium."

Drum Corps Europe supported the idea about a certified show in Ludwigshafen, and although it is disappointing news, DCE respects and understands the tough decision the Heartliners had to make. The DCE board would like to thank Uwe Baum and his team for the great efforts they have put into this show.

In 2014, Juliana is being led by a new drum major. This season, Shana Beernaert will succeed Youri Debaere, who was on the podium in 2013.

Shana Beernaert has been playing the trumpet in Juliana for the past three years and is active in various groups. She marched Beatrix and Santa Clara Vanguard (2011). In addition to the role of drum major, she is also part of the staff team and will be helping in visual and brass.

"It is a tremendous honour to stand in front of such a great corps. It is something that I’ve always wanted to do", says Beernaert. "This year’s group is fantastic and works hard. I am sure that it’s going to be another top show."

Mayflower from the Billericay in England won the Independent Open Class of the Dutch WGI Regional Saturday. In Almere - The Netherlands, the guard beat The Pride by almost two points. 

Mayflower, that reached the top ten in the WGI World Class in Dayton last year, has also shown its strength this season. The Pride was the best Dutch participant in the Independent Open Class. In the Independent A Class, the roles were reversed. The Pride A won this class, 0.6 points ahead of Mayflower A.

Beatrix was the only participant in the World Class and scored 72.90 points. The winner of Regional A Class was The Pride Junior, and Avant Courir won the Cadet Class. Scores and recaps can be found at www.colorguard.org.