Plans Announced for “DCX: The Drum Corps Experience” Online Museum

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Plans are announced for the launch of DCX: The Drum Corps Experience online museum, showcasing the fascinating evolution and colorful history of the drum and bugle corps movement.

In March of 2009, an official collaboration was established by Drum Corps International, Drum Corps Associates, the World Drum Corps Hall of Fame, Drum Corps World and others. A group of volunteers spanning all of the participating entities began work “behind the scenes” to create opportunities to locate and preserve historical records and artifacts, photographs, video and film archives, audio recordings, uniforms, ephemera and other memorabilia illustrating the history of the drum and bugle corps activity, “from the battlefield to the performance field, to Broadway and beyond.”

A secure repository for donations and physical collections has been established and the first wave of a massive digitization project is taking place, with thousands of donated documents and publications along with tens of thousands of donated photographs currently in the process of being professionally scanned and methodically organized.

Phase one of the online museum project will include the creation of “virtual galleries” which trace the evolution of the field drum and military bugle from their battlefield roots to the instruments being used by modern-day performance ensembles. Additional galleries are in planning stages, with the long-range goal of capturing the history of this unique activity from every angle, creating a vast online browsing and research platform for marching music enthusiasts around the world.

Curatorial and editorial oversight of the first project phase is being provided by a committee of volunteers headed by Steve Vickers and Frank Dorritie, with support from John Keays, Steve Rondinaro, Dennis DeLucia, Gail Langan, William Ives, Larry Hershman, Dan Acheson and Bob Jacobs. Additional phases and collaborators will be announced in the future.

For additional information on DCX: The Drum Corps Experience museum project, contact Steve Vickers (publisher@drumcorpsworld.com).