SOUNDS OF THE SOUTH

What: Drum & bugle corps competition

When: Thursday, July 29, 7:30 p.m.

Where: Panther Stadium, Milton High School

Tickets: Super Section $20; general admission $15; groups of 10 or more, $10

By Joe Culpepper

joe@gulfbreezenews.com

 Amanda Williams, Gulf Breeze, FL; Teal Sound Drum & Bugle Corps

   Hundreds of music arts enthusiasts are expected to converge on Milton High School tonight to experience world-class drum and bugle corps competition.

   Many eyes will focus on former Gulf Breeze High School SoundWave Band percussionist Amanda Williams. She performs with the 135-member host Teal Sound Drum and Bugle Corps from Jacksonville, which will compete against six other touring squads from Drum Corps International.

   Widely regarded as marching band on steroids or ‘major-league’ band, drum corps is an intense, choreographed musical competition between squads using only brass and percussion instruments supported by dance and movement utilizing flags and other props.

   Williams is in her second year with Teal Sound. She plays marimba, similar to a xylophone.
   “I’m excited that my family and friends have the opportunity to come out and see what I do all summer at the highest level of marching band there is,” Williams said last week from Missouri, where Teal Sound was preparing for a show.

   Williams, 19, graduated from Gulf Breeze High in 2009. She played snare drum for Director Neal McLeod’s SoundWave Band. She attends the University of South Florida where she is studying biology and plans to pursue a career in dentistry.

   She has spent this summer and last traveling the country with Teal Sound, the state’s only official world-class corps and one of just 23 in the entire world. She and her peers who range in age from Amanda Williams previously played snare drum in high school at Gulf Breeze, FL, but now plays miramba for the world-class Teal Sound Drum & Bugle Corps of Jacksonville. Photo: BJ Rotolo17 to 21 rehearse approximately 10 hours a day, sleep on gym floors and eat meals prepared by corps’ parents, all on the fly. The group travels by bus and semi-trailers with the ultimate destination being Indianapolis and the prestigious 2010 DCI World Championships on Aug. 12-14.

   By that time, Williams and her Teal Sound mates will have spent about 80 straight days on the road.

   “It’s a great way for me to escape for the summer and continue to play music,” said Williams, the daughter of Yvonne Williams and Sean Westfall of Gulf Breeze. “You only have to worry about two things – playing music and performing. Last year was just unbelievable; I didn’t even want to go home. You get so used to being around this group of people who are working together and experiencing the same stress. We all care so much about it.”

   Williams said her days and nights have been so consumed by performances and rehearsals that she knows very little about the Gulf oil spill.

   Imagine that.

   “This is a completely different world,” she said. “I don’t know what goes on in society, really, other than what we’re doing. You’re so focused on what we are doing.”

   What the Teal Sound is “doing” is working gruelingly hard, day after day, to improve evTeal Sound Drum & Bugle Corps performs Thursday, July 29, at Milton (FL) High School. en the most minute aspects of their performance. The demands are intense; the temperatures are blistering; and if you don’t absolutely love it, you won’t survive.

   “These kids, who’ve paid a huge sum of their own money to participate, strive for perfection constantly,” Teal Sound Director Randy Blackburn said. “It’s a very strict, physically demanding sport, but at the same time an amazing sight and sound spectacle. You take a Broadway production and move it outdoors and have the music, visual pageantry, dance and theatrics going into one 11-minute show.

   “These kids have conflicts and arguments. They eat, celebrate and cry together. They take extreme pride in what they do and how they do it.”

   Competitions are judged by DCI-certified music arts experts. Fractions of points often separate the winners from the wannabes.

   Williams learned about DCI and Teal Sound through another Gulf Breeze High alumnus, Jack Holway (Class of 2008). He competes for the perennially powerful Cavaliers from Rosemont, Ill.

   Other Teal Sound members include Teigan Keigley from Escambia High School and Garrett Lambert from Tampa who has family ties to Gulf Breeze.

    Corps looking to upstage Teal Sound tonight include The Academy from Tempe, Ariz.; Cascades from Seattle; Colts from Dubuque, Iowa; Glassmen from Toledo, Ohio; Pacific Crest from Diamond Bar, Calif.; and the Troopers from Casper, Wyo.