Northwest Youth Music Association News

Northwest Youth Music Association Auction 2008 a huge success!

A sincere thank you to those who attended our auction on May 25th. Thanks to the generous support of our members, the auction was a tremendous success! Click here to check out photos of the event.

The Monte Cristo Ballroom was a beautiful venue, and the catering by Clipper Cove Catering was wonderful.

Portland Summer Music Games Tickets On Sale

The Portland Summer Music Games will be held this year on July 8th, in Hillsboro. Click here to buy tickets. Appearing this year: Blue Devils, Phantom Regiment, Velvet Knights, Oregon Crusaders, and Spokane Thunder. Pre-sale tickets are going fast, so buy today!

Plans for the Cascades Drum Corps Experience Project on Hold

The Northwest Youth Music Association is canceling its planned Cascades Drum Corps Experience Project 2008. This was to be a 3-week intensive summer camp & tour, exposing students to drum corps, and providing a beyond-band-camp experience for a more-affordable tour/tuition cost to members of under $500. Unfortunately, because of our late start, we have found that there is not enough time this late in the season to market the program to band directors and students in order to attract sufficient members.

The Cascades Drum Corps Experience Project was a concept created in February after canceling the Cascades national World Class tour. The Project was conceived as an opportunity to serve a new market of student musicians and guard. Although we are putting this project on hold, we very much hope to pursue this project at a future date.

What is promising about the model for our Drum Corps Experience Project is that it could potentially be replicated new areas throughout the Northwest, directly serving youth in more communities. If successful, it would solve problems facing the drum corps activity in the Northwest.

A key challenge facing the Northwest is that we are outside of the convenient tour path for drum corps. As such, holding drum corps shows in our region is a problem. If we can create more local corps, we can sustain local performance venues for an increasing number of participating youth, and at the same time expose communities to the drum corps activity. This would also provide a community support base to sustain a successful World Class drum corps.

The Northwest Youth Music Association has come along way since 2006 on its path to reinvent itself. As a partner in the Rotary Music4Life project, we have embarked upon raising 1,200 musical instruments for the Seattle School District. Our all-age brass ensemble, Seattle Brass Attack is highly active, with significant expansion in discussion.

The Cascades are looking forward to returning to World Class competition in 2009, with significant planning already completed on that show. Finally, the Northwest Youth Music Association continues to explore ways to expand the tremendously valuable drum corps activity in the Northwest. As such, we strongly encourage any young persons to consider participating with either of the two Northwest drums corps touring in 2008, the Oregon Crusaders or the Spokane Thunder .