Phantom Regiment Drum and Bugle Corps explained

Phantom Regiment
Drum and Bugle Corps
Division:World Class
Founded:1956
Director:Dwight Emmert
Titles:
Directortitle1:CEO
Director1:Amanda Hamaker

Phantom Regiment Drum and Bugle Corps (commonly referred to as "Phantom") is a World Class competitive junior drum and bugle corps based in Rockford, Illinois, USA. The corps is a long-standing member of Drum Corps International (DCI), having been a DCI World Championship Top Twelve Finalist every year since 1974 and DCI World Champions in 1996 (tie) and 2008.[1]

History

The corps was founded in 1956 by Alex Haddad, a member of the Col. Thomas G. Lawler VFW Post 342. Under his direction, the corps was named the Rockford Rangers, with all-male drum and bugle sections and an all-female color guard named the Rangerettes. However, when many of the charter members were impressed by the recording of the Syracuse Brigadiers performing the Leroy Anderson composition The Phantom Regiment, the corps' name was changed before the unit made its debut, with the color guard renamed the Phantomettes.[2] [3]

In the corps' early years, the Phantomettes and a corps-sponsored all-boy color guard called the Raiders were competitively successful. The drum and bugle corps, however, struggled. In 1962, the corps bought a set of high quality bugles that had belonged to the Commonwealth Edison Knights of Light Drum and Bugle Corps which had folded two years earlier. With the new instruments and a new brass arranger, the corps began to improve. The old set of bugles went to the newly formed Phantom Regiment Cadets.

Despite the Phantomettes having placed second at the 1962 color guard national championships, in 1963, Phantom Regiment fielded an all-male corps, including the color guard. When scores fell behind those of the previous season, the Phantomettes returned to the corps for 1964. With the girls back in the corps, successful recruitment, and new uniforms, the corps had its best season until that time, including a finish of 15th among 45 corps at the VFW National Championship preliminaries in Cleveland. The Phantomettes were honored in the graphic on the City of Rockford's 1964 vehicle registration stickers. But on August 21, 1964, Regimental Hall, the corps' home base, was badly damaged by a fire. The organization was forced to sell its instruments and uniforms to pay off its debts.

Financially unable to field a corps in 1965 through 1967, alumni and former staff members reorganized and officially incorporated on September 11, 1967. At the first meeting of the newly restructured corps in January, there were 28 members. The Regiment's 1968 drum and horn lines dressed in black pants and a red windbreaker with a black and white vertical stripe on the left side; the guard wore the same windbreaker, black Bermuda shorts and an "Aussie" style hat. The season consisted mostly of parades, with few field contests. The corps owned one vehicle; a red step van to carry the equipment. In that first year of the corps' return, perhaps the corps' greatest asset was its new musical arranger, Phantom Regiment alumnus and future DCI Hall of Fame member, Jim Wren, who would go on to arrange the unit's brass music for the next 32 years.

By 1970, Phantom was able to outfit the corps in new uniforms; a cadet-style jacket with a red diagonal sash dividing the black right side from the white left side, black pants with a white stripe, white buck shoes, and a shako with a 12-inch plume. The corps had grown to 89 members with 40 horns, 14 drums, 24 flags, 12 rifles, and a drum major.

In 1971, Wren started adding the classical music pieces that would become Phantom's trademark along with the usual pop music that most corps were playing. On a Friday the 13th in that year, so the legend goes, all of the corps' buses ran out of fuel; the equipment truck caught fire, not just once, but twice; yet the corps went out and won that night's contest.

Prior to the founding of DCI in 1972, the Phantom Regiment, like most corps of the time, was strictly a local organization. The members and the staff came from Rockford and its surrounding suburbs. Travel to contests was limited to perhaps a few hours of driving. The only "National" competition the corps had ever entered had been the 1964 VFW championships in Cleveland. The corps attended the first DCI competition, in Whitewater, Wisconsin, placing 23rd of 39 corps in prelims. In 1973, The corps returned to Whitewater and moved up to 14th place among 48 corps.[4]

In 1974, Phantom presented its first full program of all-classical musical selections. The corps had grown to DCI's maximum of 128 members, and it took its first extended tour, travelling to Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts en route to the DCI Championships in Ithaca, New York. The corps was beating many of the activity's traditional powers and earning a reputation as a power in its own right. At DCI, the Regiment earned its first Top Twelve Finalist placement, beginning a string that has held through 2023. In prelims, the corps shocked many by placing 8th, although they fell back to 11th at Finals.

Once the corps became a DCI Finalist, it also became become a consistent contender, placing 10th in 1975, 4th in 1976, and having a frustrating run of second-place finishes in 1977, 1978 and 1979 with the corps scoring within tenths of a point from the title.

A fall to a 10th-place finish in 1986 led the corps to take a new approach. Three years of improvement, culminated in 1989 with another second-place finish, with Phantom's score of 98.400 tying the previous DCI highest score ever.

From 1975, Phantom Regiment's field visual shows had been designed by Norm Wheeler through 1979, when in 1980 future DCI Hall of Fame member John Brazale would move from Color Guard caption Head to Visual program Design Caption. Returning home after the 1992 DCI Championships, Brazale had complained of having severe headaches during the last few weeks, and was soon diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, and died within months.

In 1996, Phantom Regiment tied the Blue Devils of Concord, California for its first DCI World Championship. Jim Wren arranged for the corps from 1967 through the 1999 season, and then retired as the corps' musical arranger. Michael Klesch took over arranging duties in 2000 and 2001, and was then followed by alumnus J.D. Shaw, who arranged the corps' music from the 2002 season through the 2011 season. After spending the 2012–2019 seasons with the Santa Clara Vanguard, J.D. Shaw returned to Phantom Regiment after the 2019 season.

In 2008, with its performance of "Spartacus", Phantom Regiment defeated the Blue Devils Drum and Bugle Corps by a margin of 0.025 to win its second (and first outright) DCI World Championship.

Through 2019, Phantom Regiment has continued to be a DCI Finalist with the streak extending through 45 consecutive top-12 finishes. In 2022, the first year of competition since the COVID-19 Pandemic, Phantom Regiment returned with their highest placement since 2016, and highest score since 2014.

Show summary (1972–2024)

Source:[5]

style="background-color:#add8e6"
Pale blue background indicates DCI World Class Finalist
Dark gold background indicates DCI World Class Champion
YearRepertoire
Score Placement
1972March (from La damnation de Faust) by Hector Berlioz / The Phantom Regiment by Leroy Anderson / America the Beautiful by Katherine Lee Bates & Samuel A. Ward / Funeral March of a Marionette by Charles Gounod / Poet & Peasant Overture by Franz von Suppé / Shot in the Dark by Henry Mancini / Spellbound Concerto by Miklós Rózsa64.40023rd Place
1973Night on Bald Mountain by Modest Mussorgsky / The Lord's Prayer (from King of Kings) by Miklós Rózsa / MacArthur Park by Jimmy Webb / Poet and Peasant Overture & Light Cavalry Overture by Franz von Suppé / Jubilance by James Swearingen74.70014th Place
Open Class
1974Festive Overture & Fifth Symphony by Dmitri Shostakovich / Poet and Peasant Overture by Franz von Suppé / Night on Bald Mountain by Modest Mussorgsky / Romeo and Juliet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky / Les Préludes by Franz Liszt76.25011th Place
Open Class
Finalist
197581.3010th Place
Open Class
Finalist
1976Finale (from Symphony No. 7) by Gustav Mahler / Symphony No. 6 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky / Tocatta and Fugue in D Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach / An American in Paris by George Gershwin / Pilgrim's Chorus (from Tannhäuser) by Richard Wagner87.754th Place
Open Class
Finalist
1977New World Symphony by Antonín Dvořák / Piano Concerto No. 1 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky / Pagliacci by Ruggero Leoncavallo / Flight of the Bumblebee by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov / Ode to Joy (from Symphony No. 9) by Ludwig van Beethoven90.3002nd Place
Open Class
Finalist
1978Firebird, Rite Of Spring, Petrouchka, Dance Infernale & Sherzo A La Russe by Igor Stravinsky / Piano Concerto in A Minor by Edvard Grieg / Flight of the Bumblebee by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov / Ode to Joy (from Symphony No. 9) by Ludwig van Beethoven91.4502nd Place
Open Class
Finalist
1979Third Symphony by Camille Saint-Saëns / Malambo (from Estancia) by Alberto Ginastera / Morning Mood (from Peer Gynt Suite No. 1), Piano Concerto in A Minor, Hall of the Mountain King (from Peer Gynt Suite No. 1) & March of the Dwarfs (from Lyric Suite) by Edvard Grieg / Elsa's Procession to the Cathedral (from Lohengrin) by Richard Wagner92.7502nd Place
Open Class
Finalist
1980Russian Easter Overture by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov / Romany Life (from The Fortune Teller) by Victor Herbert / Polovetsian Dances (from Prince Igor) by Alexander Borodin / Masquerade Suite by Carl Nielsen / Carmen Suite by Georges Bizet, adapted by Ernest Guiraud88.4505th Place
Open Class
Finalist
198190.8505th Place
Open Class
Finalist
1982Spartacus
Triumph of Rome, Slave Dance, Gladiator Fight, Mourning and Uprising, Prelude to Battle, Battle, Sunrise & Apotheosis
All from Spartacus by Aram Khachaturian
92.1504th Place
Open Class
Finalist
1983Serenade for Strings, Cossack Dance, Dance Neapolitan & 1812 Overture
All by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
91.4504th Place
Open Class
Finalist
1984Scythian Suite by Sergei Prokofiev / Armenian Dances by Alfred Reed / Trypitch by Anthony J. Cirone / 1812 Overture by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky95.6004th Place
Open Class
Finalist
1985Symphony Fantastique
Symphony Fantastique by Hector Berlioz
90.1008th Place
Open Class
Finalist
1986Carnival Overture by Antonín Dvořák / Alborada Del Gracioso by Maurice Ravel / Sir Lancelot and the Black Knight & Merlin The Magician by Rick Wakeman / Symphony No. 2 by Gustav Mahler85.00010th Place
Open Class
Finalist
1987Songs from the Winter Palace
Selections from Swan Lake & The Nutcracker by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
94.3005th Place
Open Class
Finalist
1988Romeo and Juliet
Selections from Romeo and Juliet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Sergei Prokofiev
93.5006th Place
Open Class
Finalist
1989From The New World... Into A New Age
Symphony No. 9, Mvts. 1 & 2; Slavonic Dances No. 1; Symphony No. 9, Mvt. 4
All by Antonín Dvořák
98.4002nd Place
Open Class
Finalist
1990Dreams of Desire
Symphony No. 3, "Organ Symphony", Mvt. 4; The Elephant & Finale (from The Carnival of the Animals) & Bacchanale (from Samson and Delilah)
All by Camille Saint-Saëns
95.3004th Place
Open Class
Finalist
(tie)
1991 95.4003rd Place
Open Class
Finalist
1992 War and Peace
Marche Slav by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky / La Marseillaise by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle / 1812 Overture by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
91.5008th Place
Division I
Finalist
1993 The Modern Imagination
The Landworkers, The Wheat Dance & Danza Final (from Estancia) by Alberto Ginastera / The Fire of Eternal Glory (Novorossik Chimes) by Dmitri Shostakovich / Death Hunt (from On Dangerous Ground) by Bernard Herrmann
96.2003rd Place
Division I
Finalist
1994 Songs for a Summer Night
Ritual Fire Dance (from El amor brujo) by Manuel de Falla / Claire De Lune by Claude Debussy / Talking Drums (from White Witch Doctor), Theme from North by Northwest & Death Hunt (from On Dangerous Ground) by Bernard Herrmann
96.2003rd Place
Division I
Finalist
199594.1005th Place
Division I
Finalist
1996A Defiant Heart: The Music of Dmitri Shostakovich
Ballet Suite No. 4; Symphony No. 1, Mvt. 2 & Symphony No. 5, Mvt. 4
All by Dmitri Shostakovich
97.401st Place
Division I
Champion
(tie)
1997 The Ring
Hagen's Call to the Clan (from Götterdämmerung), Magic Fire Music (from Die Walküre), Hammering of the Ring (from Das Rheingold) & Die Götterdämmerung (from Götterdämmerung)
All from Der Ring des Nibelungen by Richard Wagner
94.2004th Place
Division I
Finalist
199890.4008th Place
Division I
Finalist
1999Tragedy and Triumph
Symphony No. 4, Symphony No. 5, Mvt. 2 & Symphony No. 6
All by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
91.2008th Place
Division I
Finalist
2000The Masters of Mystique: The Dawn of Modern Music
Jeux by Claude Debussy / Petrouchka by Igor Stravinsky / Transfigured Night by Arnold Schoenberg / Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky
90.6507th Place
Division I
Finalist
2001Virtuoso
Finale & Game of Pairs (from Concerto for Orchestra) by Béla Bartók / Festive Overture by Dmitri Shostakovich
91.9006th Place
Division I
Finalist
200292.4005th Place
Division I
Finalist
(tie)
2003Harmonic Journey
Sanctus (Canon in D) by Johann Pachelbel / Wild Nights (from Harmonium) by John Adams / The Lord's Prayer (from King of Kings) by Miklós Rózsa / Ostinato (from Mikrokosmos) by Béla Bartók
94.7504th Place
Division I
Finalist
2004Apasionada 874
Buenos Aires Hora Cero, La Muerte del Angel, Oblivion, Imagines 676, Adios Nonino & Tres Minutos con la Realidad
All by Ástor Piazzolla
93.5755th Place
Division I
Finalist
2005Rhapsody
An American in Paris & Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin
96.8253rd Place
Division I
Finalist
2006Faust
Scythian Suite by Sergei Prokofiev / Ave Maria by Franz Biebl / Piano Concerto by John Corigliano / Symphony No. 2 by Gustav Mahler
96.8502nd Place
Division I
Finalist
2007On Air
Vespertine Formations by Christopher Deane / 1000 Airplanes on the Roof by Philip Glass / Flower Duet (from Lakmé) by Léo Delibes / Suggestion Diabolique by Sergei Prokofiev / Finale (from The Firebird) by Igor Stravinsky
94.8504th Place
Division I
Finalist
2008Spartacus
Ein Heldenleben by Richard Strauss / Toccata (from Piano Concerto No. 1) by Alberto Ginastera / Dance of Ecstasy (from Danses Fantastiques) by Loris Tjeknavorian / Spartacus by Aram Khachaturian / Battlefield (from ) by René Dupéré
98.1251st Place

Champion
2009The Red Violin
Theme from The Red Violin by John Corigliano / Fantasy Variations on a Theme by Nicolo Paganini by James Barnes / Paganini Variations by Witold Lutoslawski / Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini by Sergei Rachmaninoff / Caprice XXIV by Benny Goodman / Paganini Variations by Philip Wilby
89.9009th Place
World Class
Finalist
2010Into the Light
The New Moon in the Old Moon's Arms by Michael Kamen
93.1506th Place
World Class
Finalist
2011Juliet
East of Eden by Lee Holdridge / Requiem by Giuseppe Verdi / Lacrimosa dies illa & Confutatis maledictis (from Requiem) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart / Love Theme from Romeo & Juliet by Nino Rota / Romeo and Juliet by Sergei Prokofiev / Elsa's Procession to the Cathedral (from Lohengrin) by Richard Wagner
95.0505th Place
World Class
Finalist
2012Turandot
Popolo di Pechino!; Indietro, cani; Gira la cote
... Perche tarda la luna?; O mondo, o mondo... O tigre, o tigre!; Gravi, enormi ed imponenti; Gloria, gloria; Tre enigmi m'hai & Nessun dorma
All from Turandot by Giacomo Puccini
96.5503rd Place
World Class
Finalist
2013Triumphant Journey
Music from by A. R. Rahman & Craig Armstrong / Cape Fear by Bernard Herrmann / Four Sea Interludes by Benjamin Britten / Enigma Variations: Nimrod by Edward Elgar / Symphony No. 11 by Dmitri Shostakovich
93.2506th Place
World Class
Finalist
2014Swan Lake
Swan Lake by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky / La Péri by Paul Dukas / Dracula (Act III) by Philip Feeny / A Fateful Meeting, Beauty Killed the Beast, & Tooth and Claw (from King Kong) by James Newton Howard / Mother and Child (from Flightplan) by James Horner
91.4257th Place
World Class
Finalist
2015City of Light
I Love Paris by Cole Porter / Horoscope by Constant Lambert / Claire de Lune by Claude Debussy / Piano Concerto in C♯ Minor by Francis Poulenc / An American in Paris by George Gershwin / Symphony No. 3 (Organ Symphony) by Camille Saint-Saens
90.3257th Place
World Class
Finalist
2016Voice of Promise
Preludes for Piano Op. 34, No. 14 by Dmitri Shostakovich / The Chairman Dances by John Adams / Ave Verum Corpus by Colin Mawby / The Darkest Moment by Rob Ferguson & Bret Kuhn / Hymne Des Fraternises: I'm Dreaming of Home by Phillipe Rombi / Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra by Benjamin Britten
89.9638th Place
World Class
Finalist
2017Phantasm
Finlandia by Jean Sibelius / Symphony No. 12 by Dmitri Shostakovich / Entering the Nightmare (from Dreamscape) by Maurice Jarre / Piano Concerto No. 2 by Sergei Rachmaninoff / Symphony No. 3 by Aram Khachaturian
88.1259th Place
World Class
Finalist
2018 This New World
Finale (from Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium) by Aaron Zigman & Alexandre Desplat / Piano Concerto No. 3 by Sergei Prokofiev / A Child's Garden of Dreams by David Maslanka / Picture Studies by Adam Schoenberg / New World Symphony by Antonín Dvořák
86.950 11th Place
World Class
Finalist
2019 I Am Joan
Carmina Burana by Carl Orff / Audivi Media Nocte by Oliver Waespi / Zohar by Jonathan Leshnoff / Fire of Eternal Glory & Lady McBeth of Mtsensk by Dmitri Shostakovich / Vox Populi by Jared Leto (30 Seconds to Mars) / Unleashed by Thomas Bergersen (Two Steps from Hell)
87.238 12th Place
World Class
Finalist
2020 Season cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic
2021Harmonic Journey
Sanctus (Canon in D) by Johann Pachelbel / Wild Nights (from Harmonium) by John Adams / The Lord's Prayer (from King of Kings) by Miklós Rózsa / Ostinato (from Mikrokosmos) by Béla Bartók
No scored competitions
202290.675 8th Place
World Class
Finalist
2023Exogenesis
The 2nd Law: Isolated System & Supremacy by Muse / As If A Voice Were In Them by Oliver Waespi / to wALk Or ruN in wEst harlem by Andy Akiho / Piano Concerto No. 2 by Sergei Rachmaninoff / For I Have Fought the Good Fight by Stephen Melillo
92.9887th Place
World Class
Finalist
2024Mynd
Moonlight Sonata by Ludwig van Beethoven / Surfacing by Dave Hall / Equilibrium by Paul Lovatt-Cooper / Fly or Die by Gilles Rocha / Pillar 3 by Andy Akiho
95.2254th Place
World Class
Finalist

Caption awards

At the annual World Championship Finals, Drum Corps International (DCI) presents awards to the corps with the high average scores from prelims, semifinals, and finals in five captions. Phantom Regiment has won these caption awards.[6]

Don Angelica Best General Effect Award

Fred Sanford Best Percussion Performance Award

Prior to 2000 and the adoption of the current scoring format, Phantom Regiment won these captions:

High General Effect Award

High Visual Award

High Color Guard Award

High Brass Award

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Corps . Drum Corps International . 24 February 2018 .
  2. Web site: History of the Phantom Regiment . 2012-08-12 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120622063044/http://www.regiment.org/about/history.cfm . 2012-06-22 . dead .
  3. A History of Drum & Bugle Corps, Vol. 1; Steve Vickers, ed.; Drum Corps World, 2002
  4. Web site: corpsreps.com - The Drum Corps Repertoire Database. corpsreps.com.
  5. Web site: Phantom Regiment\Repertoire . DCX: The Drum Corps Xperience . 6 March 2018 .
  6. Web site: Caption Winners . 2022-08-14 . fromthepressbox.com.