Music City

The Music City Drum and Bugle Corps is a World Class competitive junior drum and bugle corps based in Nashville, Tennessee.

A group of music educators and drum corps fans who were interested in starting a drum and bugle corps in the Nashville area formed Music City Youth in the Arts in July 2008 and created a website.. When several hundred interested people responded to the website, the board of directors decided to build an actual corps for the 2009 season. In an attempt to establish financial stability for the corps, the board decreed that practice and travel would be limited.

The first season saw a 47-member corps competing in seven shows in the Mid-South and Midwest on the way to the Drum Corps International (DCI) Open Class Championships in Michigan City, Indiana where they finished thirteenth of nineteen corps..

In 2010, the corps expanded to 64 members, and Music City began the season with the corps' very first contest win, in a defeat of two other Open Class corps in Wichita, Kansas. The corps' tour also went to Oklahoma and Texas, back home to Tennessee, then on to Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Ohio along the way to the DCI Open Class Championships in Michigan City and Indianapolis. The corps ended the season in Open Class Finals, placing 6th of sixteen corps.

Music City made a decision to grow the corps in 2011 and more than doubled the unit's size, putting a corps of 145 members on the field. The corps toured that summer only with World Class corps, and after having had Open Class prelims rained out, Music City did not march against any other Open Class corps until the class finals in Michigan City, where they finished 8th of sixteen corps. The corps then advanced to World Class Prelims in Indianapolis, placing 32nd of 41 corps.

In 2012, Music City was 9th of 14 Open Class corps with the quirky "Phantoms of the Grand Ole Opry" program, and the corps then entered World Class Prelims in Indianapolis, placing 31st of 35 corps.

In 2013, the corps picked up wins in Open Class competitions in Minnesota and Arkansas, then placed 5th of 14 corps in Open Class at Michigan City. Moving on to World Class Prelims in Indianapolis, Music City's "Postcards From Havana" show advanced to DCI World Championships Semifinals, placing 25th and earning full DCI membership. That was the good news.

The bad news came shortly after the 2013 DCI Championships, when Music City Youth in the Arts announced that the organization was financially unable to continue, and that the corps would fold.

Not wanting to lose another member corps, the DCI Board of Directors responded immediately, and the organization stepped in to assist the corps' board in reorganizing the unit's finances and helping to initiate an on-line fundraising effort to save the corps. As a result, Music City returned to the field in 2014.

Although the corps' Open Class placement dropped to 8th in 2014, it would move up to 7th in 2015 and 6th in 2016, while the corps placed 27th in World Class all three years.

During the 2017 season when the maximum corps  size was 150 marching members, Music City marched a "Tribe" of 149 members, with a "hole" at the end of the snare drum line, where, early in the season, that member had died following an attack of a chronic condition that had been thought to be under control. At the DCI Open Class championships in Michigan City, where they placed 4th among 16 corps, the corps made known its desire to compete in World Class in 2018. Later in the week in Indianapolis, the corps advanced to semifinals for the first time since 2013 and placed 24th in World Class, strengthening its case for moving up. On October 4, 2017, DCI announced that Music City had been approved to compete in World Class.

The 2020 season was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The corps returned to the field for the non-competitive 2021 season.

[Music City Youth in the Arts; Drum Corps World (multiple issues); Drum Corps International]