Australia's Camberwell High School Band made a visit to the Blue Devils B corps' March camp as their first stop on a 2-week California performance tour. "We don't have anything like drum corps in Australia" says director David Hirst. "We felt exposing our students to a group as special as the Blue Devils would be a wonderful way to kick off the tour".
Camberwell High School Band
Camberwell High School is a 7-12 grade public school in Melbourne, Australia, with an active music department that has taken their band on tours to Europe, Asia and now the west coast of the United States. On this tour the band's 47 students will perform both wind ensemble and stage band concerts at stops in San Francisco, Yosemite, Fresno, Morro Bay and at Disneyland.
Blue Devils B director Rick Odello and his staff took extra effort to not only welcome the Australian students, but to integrate them onto rehearsals, from visual stretch block to brass and percussion warm-up. The day concluded with the Camberwell band performing 4 tunes for the B corps members and the B corps in turn debuting a small bit of their 2015 show music.
"We know how valuable an experience like this can be for our international visitors, but it's really just as exciting for our members to get to share music and performance with students from around the world" says Rick Odello. "Opportunities like this fit perfectly with our 'One Music One World' initiative."
Ramona Downey-Berry, a 17-year old french horn player in the Camberwell Band, summed up the day as a unique event. "This was a whole new experience and a type of music we haven't experienced live before. It was very, very cool!"
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