By Amy Eddings
Spring training is winding down for The Cadets, the junior drum and bugle corps that has been in residence at Ohio Northern University since early May.
This is their last week of rehearsals before they begin a multi-state summer performance and competition circuit that will take them from Massachusetts to Texas. They’ll conclude their time in Ada with a free performance for the public on Sunday, June 14, at 8 p.m. at ONU’s Dial-Roberson Stadium.
Many residents have already spent evenings there watching the musicians and color guard run through sections of their new show, “The Power of Ten.”
It features movements ii and iv of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Op. 93. Anyone working or living near ONU who’s heard The Cadets’ midday drills knows those movements are fast, with syncopated rhythms and lots of notes.
It’s the kind of program that suits the signature style of The Cadets, said assistant director Bruno Zuccala, 57.
"The Cadets have been known for years [for] their fast paced drill and exciting music, and the intensity of the music,” he said. Shostakovich’s tenth symphony, he said, is a good showcase for those qualities.
The corps is at ONU for the first time. For the last seven or eight years, their spring training has been held at a high school in Johnstown, Pa., not far from The Cadet’s home base in Allentown, Pa. But this year, the high school wanted to tear up their football field to replace it with artificial turf. The work was to start on the same day as The Cadets’ spring camp.
Steve Shuey, 25, a former Cadets trumpeter who’s now tour manager, started searching for a new site.
“We needed to find a place that knew what it was doing, that had a conference center, that was used to hosting camps, that knew the ins and outs of providing dorm rooms.” He said he’s happy to have found ONU.
“To say that the facility was beyond what we needed or expected would undermine how wonderful it’s been here,” Shuey said. “Because we are at a place like this, I think we’re miles ahead of where we’ve been in the last eight years, coming out of spring training."
“I think it’s been a fantastic fit,” said David Dellifield, 43, director of ONU’s McIntosh Center, who helped bring The Cadets to Ada. “Having them here three days after commencement, it filled a niche in the summer when there was nothing going on on campus."
Administrators and drum corps members alike said they’re impressed by Ada’s friendly, safe, small-town atmosphere.
“I love it here,” said Matt Herron, 19, a trumpet player from Salina, Texas. “When we were driving in, all we saw was dirt. Just rows and rows of farms and fields. It’s really pretty. It’s a little, quaint town. And the sunsets are just beautiful."
It won’t stay cushy for long. The Cadets are founding members of Drum Corps International, which calls itself “Marching Music’s Major League.”
Its summer competition schedule is grueling, with four to five shows a week at venues that are hundreds of miles apart. “It’s just like a rock tour,” said Shuey, but with a competitive twist. Think Lollapalooza meets So You Think You Can Dance?
“Once we leave on tour, we typically sleep and rehearse at high schools,” said Shuey. On a typical day, "we’ll get into a housing site at 2 or 3 in the morning. The kids will get up, get off the bus, they’ll grab their air mattress and sleeping bag, and sleep on the gym floor.”
Ada residents who’d like to see The Cadets in competition will not have to travel far to do so.
The Cadets will perform in Akron on Saturday, June 20, and in Bowling Green on Sunday, June 28.
