onQ Performance Education

By Eddie Carden

Drum Corps International (DCI) in Addison, Ill., recently announced its upcoming onQ Performance Education Division to expand the organization’s scope in promoting music education.

In conjunction with Reston, Va.-based MENC: The National Association for Music Education, DCI has created a set of national standards and curricula for marching organizations. According to Gary Doherty, executive director of onQ, it’s the first time that such criteria have been created on a national level.

The program will be launched in November as a series of online resources for musicians. “Simply, what onQ will do is provide a one-stop shopping network where students, amateur musicians and professionals can access curriculum, materials and each other,” Doherty says. “We’re also going to provide materials and pedagogy to assist music educators in doing their jobs.”

Although the initial launch of the program will be online, onQ plans to offer single and multi-day live events throughout the country starting in the summer of 2008. For instance, onQ might sponsor a “Snare Drum Day,” where musicians could attend seminars at three or four locations across the country on how to become better drummers. In addition, onQ will host a four-day event in conjunction with the 2008 DCI World Championships.

Each event will have a specific, graded curriculum and benefit from the tremendous talent pool of DCI’s top corps, according to Doherty. To be an onQ member corps, the groups must have placed in the top eight at DCI World Championships in three consecutive years.

“From the corps standpoint, it’s about realizing that they have all this talent—instructors—and utilizing all that talent,” he says.

For more information, visit www.onq.org.

Photo by Eric Sullano. All rights reserved.

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