Carolina Crown | November Camp
/Nothing makes the new drum corps season feel more real than the first audition camp of the year. It has been almost two years since I last went to an audition camp, so I was understandably feeling a healthy mix of both excitement and nerves over spending the weekend with Carolina Crown. Nevertheless, I stuffed entirely too many things in my carry-on bag, braved the Syracuse early-winter snow, and flew to Charlotte, North Carolina to begin my weekend of work.
Audition camps, for me, are a great opportunity to work at my own pace and really concentrate on what I'm doing in the moment. Since most of the corps is broken up into sectionals for a large portion of the weekend, that allows me to have the freedom to pick which section I want to be with at any given time. I started my Saturday with the front ensemble, then moved to the snare line, bass line, and then spent a couple of minutes with the conductors until lunch time. From there, I hung out with the guard for a larger portion of the evening before calling it a day and spending the rest of my evening dumping my footage on my hard drive and catching up with my friends on the admin team.
Sunday was a bit of a whirlwind since parents would be arriving in the afternoon for the 'show and tell' portion of the weekend. This is the time of the weekend where every section exhibits a couple of excerpts that they learned throughout the weekend for the parents as well as the other sections. Show and tell is especially exciting for me because while I have seen every section throughout the weekend, I usually do not stay with one section for more than 30/45 minutes, so I definitely don't see in full what every section does. I always feel super proud of the kids at the end of show and tell. Not going to lie, I got goosebumps after hearing the brass line.
Overall, I had an extremely fun weekend. I met a lot of cool people, did some really great work, and got to catch up with friends and staff members that, for the most part, I hadn't seen since August. While camp weekends are ususally pretty stressful, they're so worth going to.
If you'd like to see the full photoset from November camp, click here!
Did you audition for a corps this weekend, or maybe volunteer with one in November? Tell me about your corps experiences below!
Thanks for reading!