Beanpot Drum and Bugle competition at Manning Field

LYNN – If the sonic and visual overload of fireworks this week still isn’t enough, you can get another spectacle fix in a unique art form: this Friday’s Beanpot Invitational Drum and Bugle Corps competition at Manning Field.It’s for a good cause, too. Over the past 15 years the event has raised more than $150,000 for youth involved in music, including $10,000 in scholarships to students at Lynn Classical and Lynn English high schools, according to organizer Frank Raffa.The Beanpot Invitational, which has bounced around various venues on the North Shore over the past couple of decades, appears to have finally found a permanent home in Lynn. Now in its fourth year here, Raffa, of Beverly, says he feels the city has embraced the competition – much as the city accommodated the World Open drum corps championship from 1966 to 1982 at the old Manning Bowl.”It’s a nice venue, nice stadium, with higher stands for viewing the shows,” said Ratta, who praised Lynn city officials in general, and Tom Bourque and John Kasian, in particular, for their help in accommodating the nearly 1,000 drum corps members from all over the country who will descend upon the city this week.On Friday night, the competition audience can expect a sort of sonic fireworks display as each corps runs through an 11-minute routine that consists of music by brass instruments (no woodwinds in a drum and bugle corps), a variety of percussion from drums and cymbals to xylophones, marimbas and tympani. The movements of the corps, which can number up to 150 members, are choreographed and ultimately judged on how well the movements work with the music.And the music runs the gamut. Last year, for example, the repertoires at the Beanpot Invitational ranged from Igor Stravinsky’s “Firebird,” to tunes by popular 1970s flugelhorn jazzman Chuck Mangione, to the funk of Earth, Wind and Fire. It even included a suite of Christmas music last year by the 2011 world champion Cadets of Allentown, Pa., who will be among the featured corps this year.”It’s everything from contemporary, to Broadway production and show tunes,” said Raffa. “It’s a total visual and auditory experience, for cheap money. It’s very entertaining, and it’s nice to see young people dedicating their time to this.”And when Raffa talks about time, he’s not kidding. From May through August, these elite musician/athletes aged 15 to 21 put in 12-hour days, rehearsing their precisely choreographed routines to a level that can, and does, surpass those of college marching bands because of the time (and money) invested in them.Later this week, convoys of tractor trailer trucks, motorcoaches and support vehicles bearing nearly 1,000 drum corps members will descend upon Lynn as the corps take up temporary residence at local schools, including Lynn Classical, Lynn English, and Breed Middle School.Raffa, a member of the Beverly Cardinals Alumni Association, was active in the corps sponsored by St. Mary’s Parish in Beverly, and the activity was so much fun, and so many lifelong friendships formed, that they feel this is “our turn to give back.””Anyone who goes to a drum corps show that’s never gone in their life, I guarantee they would be would be entertained and want to come back again,” Raffa said.1978 North Star Drum and Bugle Corps having fun on Pi (Pie) Day, March 14, 1978Victor DeRubeis can be reached at [email protected] You Go? WHAT: Beanpot InvitationalWHEN: Friday, July 5 at 7:30 p.m.Where: Manning Field, Lynn, 30 Ford St. off Boston Street (Route 129)Tickets: $25-$50Info: www.beanpotinvitational.com