Blue Stars get the corps back together, hold first weekend brass camp since 2020

LEBANON, Indiana — When Karina Howey set foot onto the Boone County Fairgrounds on the evening of Friday, March 11, it all started to hit her.

This feeling wasn’t new to her by any stretch. A four-year veteran drum major of the Blue Stars, weekend rehearsal camps are second nature to Howey.

But this particular one, in a way, almost felt brand-new.

“It's been fantastic to see friends again that I haven't seen since August,” Howey said. “It's so exciting running up to them, giving them a big hug, asking how their lives have been, and then meeting all the new people who have just been a square on a Zoom screen for a long time.”

Then again, it had been a little while.

“This is our first (offseason) camp in two years,” said Lizzie Miller, Blue Stars’ director of organizational leadership. “We learned a lot in the last season, we learned how to rehearse better virtually… but just having everyone back together is something really special.”

The Blue Stars’ brass rehearsal in Lebanon, March 11-13, marked their first weekend-long rehearsal camp in more than two years. The last time the La Crosse, Wisconsin corps held a “winter” camp, the world was just days away from falling into disarray, and that year’s drum corps season was just a few weeks away from being canceled due to COVID.

AUDITION FOR 2022 BLUE STARS

It was March 8, 2020, that Blue Stars convened what would be their final weekend camp — likely, at the time, not knowing it would be two full calendar cycles before the next one came around.

 

In the 24 months since, Blue Stars have gradually been checking off the boxes in a slow return to “normalcy.” They’ve had a spring training. They’ve had a handful of regional performances as participants in 2021’s DCI Celebration Tour. They’ve done single-day audition camps. Now, with a full-weekend camp checked off as well, that list appears to be complete.

According to Howey, that fact alone has brought with it many feelings. But mainly, it’s made everything feel real.

“This is the last thing that COVID took away that we're reintegrating,” Howey said. “It's been really fantastic to see that happen again and be together as a corps.”

“Just hearing the whole brass line come together after months of individual practice and rehearsal, it's really surreal to be back in this environment,” horn sergeant Camy Colon added.

Throughout Blue Stars’ time at rehearsal, little aspects of the weekend camp experience — things members and staff didn’t realize they’d missed — started to flood back.

“I feel so lucky to be able to play with all these people and have these amazing instructors,” Colon said. “I missed the instruction as well, because they're world class.”

 

So, March 11-13 wasn’t just an everyday camp weekend, even for veterans like Howey and Colon. But it didn’t take long to feel like one.

Once veterans and rookies alike were settled into the Fairgrounds, Blue Stars’ brass section hit the ground running, honing technique, working on good rehearsal habits, and piecing together music for the corps’ 2022 production.

“They are bought into the process,” Howey said. “Which is surprising, because this is the first time we're here as a group, and you'd expect there to be some unsureness as to how drum corps really works. But every single person, they’re all bought in, which is really exciting to see.”

Beyond the technical minutia, though, members of the 2022 Blue Stars horn line got to do something for the first time ever — although a little later into the season than they may have in a previously “normal” offseason.

They got to play together.

“It all comes together this weekend,” Colon said. “I didn't realize how much I missed playing with so many talented people.”

With the joy of the return to weekend camps now in the rearview, Blue Stars’ focus is locked in on the start of the 2022 DCI Summer Tour, which is just over three months away. The corps’ first performance is slated for June 28 in Detroit, Michigan.

In a way, with so much work left to be done in preparation for the first full competitive tour in what will be three years, it still feels far away.

But, like Howey said, at least now it feels real.

VIEW BLUE STARS’ 2022 TOUR SCHEDULE

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