The Cavaliers are a Division I drum and bugle corps based in Rosemont, Illinois and founded in 1948 by Donald Warren, and are a member corps of Drum Corps International. The Cavaliers are currently under the direction of Jeffery Fiedler. Director since 1991, Fiedler has led the corps to all of its DCI world championship victories, and is an inductee into the Drum Corps International Hall of Fame. Known to fans as the "Cavies" and the "Green Machine", the Cavaliers are one of only two all-male corps in the activity, the other being the Madison Scouts. Perhaps the most visually dynamic corps, the Cavaliers use the raw athleticism of their members to the fullest extent possible, and have been pioneering forces in pushing the limit of high speed marching drill.
History
The Cavaliers Drum and Bugle Corps was founded in 1948 by Don Warren. He is the only person to ever serve as corps president for the Cavaliers - a role he has filled for nearly 60 years. Don is also one of the inaugural members of the Drum Corps International Hall of Fame. When the group was created, it was known as "Boy Scout Troop 111 Drum and Bugle Corps". Today the Cavaliers are sponsored by the village of Rosemont, IL. The corps songs of the Cavaliers are "Over the Rainbow" (since 1951) and "The Corps Song", set to the tune of "Semper Paratus". The corps cheer or battle cry is "Splooie"; the meaning of the word is known only to members who have been initiated into the Cavalier brotherhood, a process taking two years to achieve; the only one year marchers to know the meaning of splooie are "rook-outs" (a member joining at the age of 21, thus only having one year to march). When the Cavaliers leave the field of competition after a performance of their show music, the corps' bass drum section traditionally plays a cadence entitled "Iowa". The Cavaliers were the first marching unit to use and standardize pitched (tonal) bass drum tuning. The corps has a long history of success in the competitive ranks of Drum Corps International (DCI) as well as the earlier VFW and American Legion Championship years in the 1950's-1980's. The Cavaliers have won more championships (Drum Corps International, VFW, American Legion, and Winter Guard International championships included) and contests than any other drum and bugle corps in the history of the activity. They are the only junior drum and bugle corps to experience two undefeated seasons - 1961 and 2002. The Cavaliers also hold the record for the most consecutive victories of any drum and bugle corps with 63 first place finishes in a row over three seasons (2001, 2002, 2003), breaking the previous record of 51 wins in a row held by The Blue Devils Drum and Bugle Corps; the Cavaliers' streak was broken by the Blue Devils on July 26, 2003. The Cavaliers also achieved a three-peat in the winter color guard activity, winning the WGI Championship in 1981, 1982, and 1983. They have played for four Presidents of the United States (Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson). Also, select members of the corps were chosen in 2005 to appear on The Oprah Winfrey Show to portray a college band. Their marching designs and fundamental marching technique revolutionized the marching band and drum corps idiom through the late 1980's, the entire decade of the 1990's, and still to this day.
Brass Philosophy
Since 2001 the Cavaliers have become known in the activity for their unique conceptual approach to brass pedagogy. This approach is primarily adopted from the work of Eddie Green, a renowned and extremely influential Texas band director and director emeritus at the University of Houston. David Bertman, University of Houston band director and brass caption head of the Cavaliers, was a student of Green's and still works closely with him to this day. The series of ideas and exercises that comprise Green's approach primarily revolve around establishing a characteristic tone quality on Concert F and then transferring the characteristic sound of that note to notes above and below it, both individually and across the ensemble. Matching throughout both the brass choir and the entire ensemble is probably the key concept, primarily in tone and articulation. The importance of individual listening and awareness in these "matching" exercises is always stressed, usually to the point where a mechanical tuner is never used during a summer at the Cavaliers.
Ultimately, it must be stressed that this "characteristic tone quality" that the instructional staff seeks is the foundation of how the Cavaliers approach playing music.
Mission Statement
"The mission of the Cavaliers is to provide the members with life changing experiences, educationally and socially, which help each individual member gain realworld life skills, musical training and performance experiences. Through the development of the character traits of dedication, discipline and teamwork, each member of this close knit, all male fraternity learns what is required to be successful on and off the performance field. Participation in the Cavaliers instills confidence, quality of character and a strong work ethic that cannot be taught in any college or university and is desirable in the real world workplace." http://www.Cavaliers.org
DCI Championship Years
1992
Performing "Revolution and Triumph", the Gavorkna Fanfare by Jack Stamp, and Sir Malcom Arnold's fourth movement of Cornish Dances, fourth movement of English Dances, and the Peterloo Overture, the Cavaliers claimed their first Drum Corps International title with a score of 97.50.
1995
To the music of Gustav Holst's The Planets, specifically Mars, Venus, Mercury, and Jupiter, the Cavaliers took home a second championship title with a score of 98.30. The show included the impressive visual maneuver recreating a double helix with the effect of rotation. Two lines of corpsmembers formed waves that passed through each other in synchronization, creating a "rotating" helix.
2000
After falling to a seventh place finish at the 1997 DCI Championships, the Cavaliers came back in 2000 to tie for the title with The Cadets, this time becoming champions with Michael Daugherty's Niagara Falls and an original composition by Richard Saucedo. A score of 97.65 secured another Cavalier title and the start of the second three-peat in DCI history. This was another visually impressive performance, with the famous "diamond cutter", with a square diamond form that groups of four members spun in, culminating with the entire diamond spinning in synchronization which had first been used by the corps in 1999 with tremendous success.
2001
"Four Corners" was the Cavaliers' show for 2001, with Richard Saucedo again composing original music for the corps. With frantic tempos sending members sprinting across the field, the Cavaliers won for the second year in a row with a score of 98.35.
2002
Perhaps the most famous Cavaliers show to date, "Frameworks" was in many ways a record-breaking show for the Drum Corps International circuit. It constituted the second three-peat in DCI history, making the highest score to date of 99.15 (which has been tied only once by The Cadets in 2005). It was also the third year in a row the Cavaliers had won on shows with original music, this time composed by Erik Johnson, Bret Kuhn, and Richard Saucedo. The Cavaliers again reinforced their position as DCI's visual powerhouse, with such maneuvers as full-corps jumps, a giant framed circle sliding across the field while rotating, and the famous "Fight Club" sequence where corpsmembers engaged in a frenetic dance and choreographed martial arts breakdown. In 2005, Frameworks was voted as one of the shows to appear in the DCI Classic Countdown, a movie theater showing of the top twelve shows of all time, with one show for each corps.
2004
After placing second to the Blue Devils in 2003, the Cavaliers claimed their sixth DCI world champion title with the music of James Bond, as composed by David Arnold. The Cavies performed selections from GoldenEye, the Hovercraft theme from Die Another Day, and Tomorrow Never Dies. Perhaps the most memorable form of the night was a maneuver now known as the "Floating Circle of Percussion," in which the horns were arranged in a moving field of lines. The drumline, in a circle, rotated through the horns, gaining horn members into their circle, and then replacing them in the positions once the circle manuvered its way beyond their position. Their score at finals was a 98.7.
2006
Cementing themselves as the corps of the decade, the Cavaliers won their fifth title in seven years with a show entitled MACHINE. Scoring a 97.200 at finals at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, it featured, among other things, crowd surfing and robot dancing. In caption awards, The Cavaliers won the Jim Ott Trophy for best brass for the second time in the corps' history, as well as best effect and best visual performance. The Cavaliers were also awarded the Spirit of Disney Award for Innovation, which marks the first time that a corps has won both the DCI Championship and the Spirit of Disney Award in the same year.
Winning Decade
After winning the 2006 DCI World Championships, The Cavaliers set a new record for the most World Championship Titles in a single decade since the creation of Drum Corps International in 1972. The previous record was a tie between The Garfield Cadets with four titles (1983, 1984, 1985, and 1987), and the Blue Devils Drum and Bugle Corps (1994, 1996, 1997, and 1999). The Cavaliers obtained their fifth title since the beginning of the decade, with wins in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, and 2006.
Shows by Year
| Year | Theme | Repetoire | Score | Result | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1972 | ? | Toreador Song/One Hand, One Heart/Les Preludes/Casey Jones/Eleanor Rigby/Salute to the Green/Over the Rainbow | 79.450 | 9 | |
| 1974 | ? | Toreador Song/Victory at Sea/Tommy/All for the Best/Percussion Blues/Once Upon a Time/Over the Rainbow/Somewhere | 79.550 | 8 | |
| 1975 | ? | Russian Christmas Music/Time Odyssey 7534/Love in Them Thar Hills/Entrance to Reality /Once Upon a Time/Somewhere/Over the Rainbow | 82.950 | 8 | |
| 1976 | ? | Russian Sailor’s Dance/Chump Change/Give It One/Summertime/Bess, You is My Woman/Firebird Suite | 84.300 | 7 | |
| 1977 | ? | Man of LaMancha Medley/Porgy and Bess Highlights | 83.000 | 7 | |
| 1979 | ? | Santa Esmeralda Suite/Fantasy/Cuban Fire Suite/Over the Rainbow/Children of Sanchez | 78.500 | 11 | |
| 1980 | ? | Santa Esmeralda Suite/Suncatchers/Sing, Sing, Sing/Sambandrea Swing/Softly As I Leave You | 77.400 | 9 | |
| 1981 | ? | Picasso Suite/Sing, Sing, Sing/Sambandrea Swing/Softly as I Leave You | 82.800 | 10 | |
| 1982 | ? | The Pines of Rome/City I’ve Had Enough/Softly As I Leave You | 81.950 | 11 | |
| 1983 | ? | Jade/Celebration Suite/Rendevouz/Pines of Rome | 88.550 | 9 | |
| 1984 | ? | Don Juan/Summer Sketches/Ozark/Pines of Rome | 89.700 | 8 | |
| 1985 | ? | Also Sprach Zarathustra/Mars/Mercury/Uranus/Jupiter | 94.100 | 5 | |
| 1986 | ? | Canzona/Variations on a Korean Folk Song/Mars | 95.700 | 3 | |
| 1987 | ? | Festival Variations/Variations on a Korean Folk Song/Liturgical Dances | 94.700 | 3 | |
| 1988 | "Firebird Suite" | Firebird Suite | 95.100 | 5 | |
| 1989 | "Gloria" | Gloria - Andante and Allegro Vivace/Images Diabolique/Gloria - Vivace E Ritmico | 97.200 | 3 | |
| 1990 | "Cavalier Anthems" | Homage to Machaut/Variations on a Hymn/All Things Bright and Beautiful/O, Clap Your Hands/Gloria | 96.900 | 2 | |
| 1991 | "Cavalier Anthems Advent Collection" | Variations on an Advent Hymn/Te Deum/Die Natale/Men of Goodwill/The Bridegroom/O Be Joyful in the Lord | 96.300 | 2 | |
| 1992 | "Revolution and Triumph" | Gavorkna Fanfare/Cornish Dance (4th Movement)/English Dances(4th Movement)/Peterloo Overture | 97.500 | 1 | |
| 1993 | "Heroes, A Symphonic Trilogy" | The Symphonic Cantata/Heroes, Lost and Fallen/Morning Alleluias | 94.000 | 5 | |
| 1994 | "Rituals" | Sansemaya/Humming Chorus/War Dance/Church Windows/March from Symphonic Metamorphosis | 95.700 | 4 | |
| 1995 | "The Planets" | Mars/Venus/Mercury/Jupiter | 98.300 | 1 | |
| 1996 | "Pan American Sketches" | Pavana/Mexican Landscape/Piano Sonata No. 1, Mvt. IV/Symphony No. 3 | 93.800 | 4 | |
| 1997 | "The Firebird" | The Firebird | 92.800 | 7 | |
| 1998 | "Traditions for a New Era" | The Path Between the Mountains/Molto Vivo and Lento/Machine | 96.200 | 4 | |
| 1999 | "Classical Innovations" | Fantasia in G/Fantasies on a Theme by Haydn | 97.000 | 3 | |
| 2000 | "Niagra Falls" | Niagara Falls | 97.650 | 1 | |
| 2001 | "Four Corners" | Four Corners | 98.350 | 1 | |
| 2002 | "Frameworks" | Melody/Harmony/Rhythm | 99.150 | 1 | |
| 2003 | "Spin Cycle" | Propulsion/Resonance/Terminal Velocity/Centrifugal Force | 97.250 | 2 | |
| 2004 | "007" | James Bond Theme/Goldeneye/For Your Eyes Only/Live and Let Die/Hovercraft Chase/Welcome to Cuba/Paris and Bond | 98.700 | 1 | |
| 2005 | "My Kind of Town" | My Kind of Town/Jig/The Great Fire of 1871/Chicago Blues | 97.625 | 2 | |
| 2006 | "Machine" | Genesis/Wired/Premonition/The Machine Age | 97.200 | 1 |