In 2001 the Glassmen celebrated their 40th anniversary in grand style, placing fifth at the DCI World Championships for the third time in four years, (including 1998 and 1999. At the 2001 Finals, the corps scored just 3.05 points under first place with a 94.300, the corps' highest Finals score ever.
"IMAGO" took us south of the border, and south of that border, all the way to Brazil and Argentina, with a return stopover in Cuba. The music represented novel sounds that were still novel and unexpected in mid-Century North America.
As billed in the 2001 DCI Souvenir Yearbook: “IMAGO presents an intersection of music and history; where divergent sounds of the 20th Century become dangerous, serene and provocative. From dream-like introspection to contemporary conflict, it is a show hallmarked by a variety of moods — a full spectrum of youthful emotion.”
Delightful in its quirky South American melodies and bombastic in its passionate, hammering Latin rhythms, the show commenced with an extended primal drum solo leading into violent brass attacks that shook one's composure, culminating in a glorious standstill hit.
The first couple selections were by Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera, whose creative output essentially spanned the mid 20th Century. His "Invocation to the Powerful Spirits" from "Panambi" and "Impetuosamente" from "Pameana No. 3" highlighted the composer's enchantment with unpredictable outbursts of rhythm and melody.
The heart and soul of the show was without a doubt the first movement, "Meditation," from Brenno Blauth's "Concertino for Oboe and Strings." Blauth, a Brazilian composer who lived into the 1990s, arguably created the most memorable melody to hit the drum corps field in 2001. Transferred from oboe to a flugel solo, the corps' rendition was possibly the bravest commitment any DCI corps has ever made to depending on a single soloist. It offered a pleasurable respite from the intensity that bookended each side of it in the show.
Many have wondered about the source of this piece. A few years after the Glassmen performed it, a video showed up on YouTube from the XX International Chamber Music Festival in Belem, Brazil with oboist Moisés Pena at the forefront.
Suddenly, Ginastera's "Panambi" came back with the "Dance of the Warriors," shocking the audience out of the complacency of the lovely "Meditation" and leading the way to Julian Orbón's "Pavana" from "Tres Versiones Sinfonica," (Three Symphonic Versions). Orbón, born in Spain, wrote the work while in Cuba before leaving during the Cuban Revolution to come to teach in the United States. "Pavana" was based on medieval chants, but its joyous demeanor was opposite in character to what one might expect of such music.
A drill form close to the end of the show was based on the Glassmen’s inverted triangle logo, a motif the corps continued to employ many years into the future.
2001 DCI World Championship Awards Ceremony
Michael Boo was a member of the Cavaliers from 1975-1977. He wrote about the drum corps activity for more than 35 years while serving as a staff writer for various Drum Corps International projects. During his lifetime Boo wrote for numerous other publications including an honors-winning book on the history of figure skating. He also was an accomplished composer. Boo passed away in 2020 and was inducted into the DCI Hall of Fame posthumously in 2021.