Drumming up curiosity at Memorial
Jul 2nd, 2008 by Paul Leighton
If you were driving on Balch Street earlier today, you might have heard the free concert. A drum corps called The Crossmen — all 150 of them — was practicing on the field behind the Memorial Building.
The Crossmen are based in San Antonio and are in the midst of a five-week, 15-state tour that began in Texas and will end in Florida. They’re in town to take part in a competition tonight at Endicott College.
The Crossmen are a big-time operation. They travel in a caravan of three buses, two semi-trailers full of equipment, and another vehicle that one of their staff members described as a “moving kitchen.”
The musicians are ages 14 to 21 and they pay $2800 to go on the tour. They sleep mostly at high schools that are made available to them for free, and they practice 10 hours per day.
“Those who survive are very talented by the end of the summer,” said Roland Chavez, who’s in charge of the percussion section (there’s also a color guard and a brass section). “A lot of them end up teaching.”
