Santa Clara Vanguard

The Santa Clara Vanguard Drum and Bugle Corps is a World Class competitive drum and bugle corps. based in Santa Clara, California.

On the evening of March 6, 1967, the parent-boosters of the Sparks Drum & Bugle Corps, unhappy with the corps' artistic direction, voted to shut down the corps and return the unit to being a drum and bell corps with majorettes.

After the fatal vote, three dissenting adult staff-supporters met with concerned corps members and asked them if A) they would rather continue as a drum and bugle corps, or B) become a drum and bell corps. When the members resounding chose "A," a new corps was born, and a new booster club was organized on the spot. Gail Royer, who was a music instructor for the Sparks, a local elementary music teacher, and an American Legion music judge was picked as the director for the new corps. The naming of the corps was delayed until the new group's first scheduled rehearsal, a week later. At that time, after discussing several possibilities, the members and staff named their new corps the Santa Clara Vanguard.

Only week later, the brand new corps marched in its first parade and won the San Francisco’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

The big trip in 1967 was to Southern California for the Anaheim Kingsmen’s second annual Festival of Music contest. The corps placed fourth there, but they also saw a performance by the U.S. Air Force Academy Drum & Bugle Corps, giving them a taste of what was possible in the drum corps medium. It was also the weekend that they met Pete Emmons and Fred Sanford, two young instructors with the Kingsmen who would play large roles in the Santa Clara corps’ future. . Just before the corps’ final performance of that first seasonr, Gail Royer honored the corps’ age-outs with the first Green Feather Ceremony, a rite that would become a corps tradition.

As with most corps of the day, several of the brass arrangements played during the corps’ early years were written by Truman Crawford, director of the U.S. Marine Corps Drum & Bugle Corps. Other early contributors to the brass book included Don Angelica and Keith Markey (with “fine tuning,“ contributed by Jack Meehan). Gail Royer began writing arrangments during the corps' first year, and he gradually took over more and more of the repertoire, until he was SCV's only brass arranger from 1970 through1980.

In 1968, the corps embarked on its first tour to the Midwest in order to measure itself against more experienced corps. Although they did not place high at any of the competitions, the tour was a success because of the competition experience and the exposure to the national competition scene. Corps members made many friends and gained the respect of fellow performers from such elite corps as the Troopers, Kilties, Cavaliers, and Blue Stars.

On the local front, the SCV Color Guard beat the Anaheim Kingsmen to win the 1968 California Color Guard Circuit Championship. The Vanguard won its first standstill competition, followed by its first public performance of "Procession of the Nobles" with the U.S. Air Force Academy Drum & Bugle Corps in the audience. On August 3, 1968, SCV won its first field contest at the Anaheim Kingsmen’s show. The corps was host of the first "Pacific Procession" field competition (named after "Procession of the Nobles")--- the audience was smaller than anticipated, with the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy occuring only a few days before. Santa Clara Vanguard capped off its year by winning the first of many California State Open Championships.

"Procession of the Nobles" presented the corps with two challenges. First, no corps had ever played an entire piece in odd time while marching--- odd meters and tempos were reserved for the standstill portion of the show. Second, Royer’s arrangement of the chart included the original intro, with three measures of the opening rhythmic statement. Staff members quickly realized that this introduction meant that the drill would have to step off on the right foot--- a marching "no-no" at that time. It took Royer about one minute to solve the problem – rewriting the arrangement right in the middle of a drill rehearsal, he cut out one of the problem measures, and it all fell into step.

1969 was the first year the corps traveled to the East Coast. SCV made it onto a Fleetwood Records album by placing ninth in the World Open Finals. At the VFW National Championships in Philadelphia, the corps just missed making finals, losing to the Argonne Rebels for 12th spot by 0.15 of a point.

Following VFW Nationals, the Vanguard traveled to Washington, D.C., where they played a standstill concert on the steps of the Capitol building, The corps then went to New York City for four days of "cultural enrichment." On the long trip home, two station wagons broke down outside Aurora, Nebraska. Exhibitions in North Platte, Nebraska, and Elko, Nevada, went on without the passengers in those cars--- two soprano soloists, a third soprano, two lead baritones, and the entire French horn section. It was on the Eastbound stretch of the tour that, at the height of the Vietnam War, the guys in the corps learned their numbers for the national draft lottery.

Santa Clara Vanguard had already become a legitimate national contender in 1970. The corps won their first American Legion California State Championship, defeating the two powerhouse corps from Anaheim, the Kingsmen and the Velvet Knights. Six nights later in Racine, Wisconsin, before one of drum corps' toughest crowds, SCV's playing of Royer’s arrangements of music from "Fiddler on a Roof,” had even the stadium announcer shouting, "Wonderful Show! Wonderful Show!" That night, they were second to the Troopers, but by the end of the following weekend, Santa Clara had beaten practically everyone in the country. On July 11, 1970, at the North American Open in Milwauke's Marquette Stadium, the Santa Clara Vanguard left the field after being saluted by such legendary corps as the Troopers, Cavaliers, Madison Scouts, Blue Stars, Kilties, Argonne Rebels, Garfield Cadets, and DeLaSalle Oaklands. It was a defining moment in the history of the corps. and Royer told the corps' small staff on the sidelines, "We’ve finally made it!"

Due to limited finances, the corps was unable to travel to Miami to compete for the VFW National Championship that August. Instead, they carpooled to Portland, Oregon, and the American Legion Nationals. Competing against mostly West Coast corps, SCV won the 1970 American Legion Junior National Drum & Bugle Corps Championship while thier color guard also won the .Color Guard National Championship.

The Santa Clara Vanguard were urged by Cavaliers founder Don Warren and Troopers founder Jim Jones to join in starting a new organization run by the drum corps and free from the rigid, inflexible rules of the American Legion and VFW. The corps felt that not only were they having their creative potential as artistic performing groups stifled, but they were being financially starved. During the 1971 season, the "Midwest Combine," composed of the Blue Stars, Cavaliers, Madison Scouts, Santa Clara Vanguard, and the Troopers were not only booked into a number of shows together, but they found a host for a show of their own, which was a spectacular success. A simiar group called the United Organization of Junior Corps (also known as the "Alliance") was made up of five top-tier Eastern corps. In 1972, the ten corps from the Combine and the Alliance joined with three other top corps to form Drum Corps International (DCI), which remains as the sanctioning body for junior corps in North America. In the Combine shows, SCV had lost twice to the Troopers and were also behind the Cavaliers in one shoow.

Otherwise during that season, SCV competed in four "major" shows; the first three are known in the annals of the corps as "The Boston Massacre." The Vanguard was third at the CYO Nationals in Lowell, Massachusetts behind Blue Rock and the Anaheim Kingsmen. Of the thirty-seven corps at the World Open in Lynn, Massachusetts, Santa Clara placed second behind the 27th Lancers after winning prelims, and they were again behind 27 at the Danny Thomas Invitational in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Then a month later, while not winninga single caption, the Santa Clara Vanguard won both prelims and finals at the 1971 VFW National Championship in Dallas, Texas. Among the corps they beat at the Cotton Bowl were Blue Rock, Troopers, Anaheim Kingsmen, and the 27th Lancers--- four of the five corps that had finished ahead of them earlier in the season.

1972 was the inaugural season of the Drum Corps International World Championships. The Santa Claraa Vanguard, with a new look in uniforms of: red tunics, dark green pants/skirts, and dark green Aussie hats with curled white feathers, was among the favorites to win the crown. After the 39 corps prelims, SCV was the leader of the Top 12 corps that made Finals. However, in Finals they were passed not only by Blue Stars but by the surging Anaheim Kingsmen, who had kicked up their score by 3.6 points from prelims to become the first DCI World Champions. While Santa Clara did not win that night, they began an unbroken string of DCI Finals appearances that continues through 2017, a claim that no other corps can make..

In 1973, the Santa Clara Vanguard was a dominating force. They lost twice to the Troopers in July, but they won 27 contests that year. On August 17th, in front of 14,000 fans at Warhawk Stadium in Whitewater, Wisconsin, SCV won its first DCI World Championship.

The Vanguartd had played the music of "The Bottle Dance" from "Fiddler on the Roof" in both 1972 and '73. In 1974, SVC's guard did the bottle dance, bringing down the house at show after show. They lost a show early on to Troopers, and they were second behind the Madison Scouts at both DCI Midwest and the U.S. Open. After DCI prelims at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, the corps was in third place, behind Madison and their prime rival, the Anaheim Kingsmen. Declining the defending champion's option of performing last, SCV added nearly three points to their prelims score in Finals. The audience reaction to the corps' performance was such a deafening roar that the Scouts and Kingsmen were unable to supress the Santa Clara Vanguard's charge to a second consecutive DCI Crown. In addition, they took High M&M, High Drums, and tied Madison for High GE. (The drumline had gone undefeated for its second consecutive year.) Also in that spectacular season, SCV introduced the lyrical tune that has gone on to become the song that spans the generations of SCV members and fans, "Send in the Clowns.”

An inspired 1975 finals performance earne the corps a perfect 30.0 in GE and a High Percussion score of 19.4, but still left Santa Clara in second place, 1.5 points behind the Madison Scouts.

Innovative drill in the form of a moving and revolving circle marked 1976. DCI also made its mark that year by officially approving two-valve horns, although they went on record as being, "permanently opposed to any three-valve horns in the future."

In 1977, the Vanguard and most major corps converted to two-valve horns, a move expected to add approximately five years to the life of the horns. The booster club continued to put the corps on the field in style, as the corps' mobile kitchen truck, "Miss Amana" made her debut and was the envy of all the other corps. For a corps that in its first few years had eaten a lot of its meals in fast-food restaurants and breakfasted on cornflakes from Dixie cups, this complete kitchen on wheels was a real luxury.

In 1978, fielding 10 snares, the corps performed selections from Khachaturian's "Gayne Ballet." The 34 girls in the color guard that year used a maypole and hoops instead of rifles, and performed the popular "Bottle Dance" once again. Although the corps took second or third most of the year, they peaked at the right time in August. In Denver, SCV scored 4.9 out of a possible 5.0 in Marching & Maneuvering and 29.8 out of a possible 30.0 in General Effect to win its third DCI championship.

The Vanguard's dominance during DCI's early days was partly due to superb drumming, partly due to innovative drill, but largely due to a strong, supportive organization

By 1980, most corps were executing field drills of circles, triangles, diamonds, arcs, X's and serpentine files. Only occasionally, cautiously, were asymmetrical patterns beginning to appear. SCV would close out the Seventies by falling to seventh place in Birmingham, Alabama in 1980 with a totally asymmetrical drill that was "extremely innovative” but slightly ahead of its time Also in 1980, DCI released its first state-of-the-art record album, professionally recorded in concert at the Concord Pavilion show on July 1, featuring the Santa Clara Vanguard and the Blue Devils.

Santa Clara recovered from the down season of 1980 by winning its fourth DCI World Championship in '81. Then, over the next seven years, SCV placed second five times and third twice before winning its fifth DCI title in 1989 with music from "Phantom of the Opera,".

During the run through the Eighties, SCV put velcro and magic on the field... changing the horn lines' tunics with a tear-away panel... changing the corps' pants while quickly passing through a tunnel... making members appear on the field... making members disappear to close the show... and then making the full corps disappear....

Following the 1989 championship, (as DCI allowed three valve bugles in 1990) SCV went into, for them, a down period; seven straight years of finishing no better than fifth. Even the corps' trademark "Fiddler" music could place no better than seventh in 1992.

After the '92 season, the corps' director since its founding, Gail Royer, stepped down, with few knowing he was terminally ill and would die soon after.

After five years of Broadway shows, a four year run from 1993-'97 featured music by European masters with no more success, with finishes of 7th, 5th, 6th, and another 5th.

In 1998, J.W. Koester's second season as director, the corps switched to American composers. That season's Bernstein program moved the corps back to third place at DCI. The next year's Copland show rose to take the Vanguard's seventh second place finish. In 1999, with an innovative music program from three Twentieth Century American composers--- Philip Glass, Frank Ticheli, and Samuel Barber--- the Santa Clara Vanguard won its sixth DCI World Championship.

Since winning the sixth title, SCV has remained a DCI Finalist under four different directors, extending the streak of Top 12 appearances to 48 through 2019. 

The 2017 show, "Ouroboros" was a definite contender, earning the Santa Clara Vanguard its eighth second place finish. In 2018, SCV completely abandoned its traditional uniforms, marched a challenging musical program of largely unfamiliar music, and "Babylon" won the corps' seventh DCI Championship.

The 2020 season was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The corps was also inactive for the non-competitive 2021 season but returned to the field in 2022.

In December 2022, the Vanguard Music & Performing Arts announced that the Santa Clara Vanguard would cease operations for the 2023 season. Financial stresses of the previous few years had caused an unavoidable financial shortfall. The organization would concentrate on strengthening its financial position. The Vanguard returned to the field in 2024, finishing in sixth place while winning the Fred Sanford Award for high drums.

[Vanguard Music and Performing Arts; A History of Drum & Bugle Corps, Vickers, 2002-03; Drum Corps World, multiple issues; Drum Corps International]

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