Canadian drum corps for Canada Day

Happy Canada Day!  To celebrate the first of three patriotic holidays I observe during July at this blog, I'm going to do what I've done for the 4th of July and Flag Day--make it a drum corps holiday with corps from north of the border.

I begin with the 1976 Oakland Crusaders playing "El Gato Triste."


1976 may have been the USA's bicentennial, but it was the only year two Canadian corps made DCI Finals.  Here is the other, the Seneca Optimists.

The Seneca Optimists earned a spot as a finalist corps in its first year of a merger between the Seneca Princemen (founded in 1972) and Toronto Optimists (founded in 1952). The new corps was particularly noted for its bright yellow uniform jackets.

The corps’ 10th-place 1976 production kicked off with “5th Movement, Rondo: Finale” from Gustav Mahler’s “Symphony No. 7,” a movement Mahler referred to as “bright day” after the “night pieces” of the second and fourth movements and the “shadow-like” waltz of the third. Premiered in 1908, the symphony remains the least recorded of his 10 symphonies. The Optimists stated the main theme with brass players goose-stepping toward the center of the field while playing to the front.

Follow over the jump for more Canadian corps from the 1980s to the 2000s.

1986 was another good year for Canadian corps, with two in DCI Semifinals.  Here is Les Eclipses with a show that I'm tempted to recycle for Bastille Day.

Les Eclipses from Longueuil, Quebec and [their] 1986 show: 'Parisian Suite'. *All rights at DCI (c)*

The other corps from that year I'm sharing are the Canadian Knights.

1986 Canadian Knights - Semifinals 24th Place/Class "A" Champions

I had the pleasure of meeting the staff of this corps in Allentown at DCI East that year.  They were very nice people who gave me a ride to the stadium.

The most recent Canadian corps to make DCI Finals was the 1990 Dutch Boy.


Finally, here are the 2005 Kiwanis Kavaliers.

Sitting in 24th place at the end of the Quarterfinals competition were the Kiwanis Kavaliers, at the conclusion of the corps' 30th anniversary season. The Canadian corps had long been considered one of DCI's most international groups, having hosted members from more than 20 countries across both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

There are more Canadian corps and performances, but I'll share them next year.  After all, I'm an environmentalist; I conserve my resources!

Speaking of being an environmentalist, it's time to recycle San.  It wouldn't be one of my Canada Day posts without her.