Featured Bands 2016
The Windsor Optimist Youth Band
We have a special guest band this year – they are celebrating their 50th anniversary and have been invited to play at the CNE. We are excited to include them in our line up this year!
The Windsor Optimist Youth Band is a community marching band that has been pleasing audiences locally, across the country and around the world since 1966. The basic morals of discipline, teamwork and bettering oneself are the main lessons learned in a fun and rewarding atmosphere. The band entertains people on the street in local parades, community, and sporting events, and also puts on three big concerts a year. This gives the group the opportunity to show off that they can not only put on a great show on the move, but are also talented and dedicated musicians who love to learn all they can about their craft.
Dundas Pipe and Drum
The Dundas Pipes and Drums is a competition band that has been in operation since 1947. During this time, it has been featured in many competitions, parades, concerts and tattoos in Ontario. Since it’s inception, the band has maintained high standards of piping, drumming and teaching, bringing the traditions and love of Highland music to the community. We are a “Not for Profit” Band whose mission is to pass on our legacy of teaching and playing the pipes and drums.
The Dundas Pipes & Drums is made up of experienced players and up and comers. We come from all walks of life and range in age from 14 to over 70. What we all have in common is a love of highland music and a desire to become better players.
Grimsby Pipe Band
The Grimsby Pipe Band is an actively participating pipes and drums band based in Grimsby, Ontario, Canada. The band formed in 1999 on the initiative of Gordon Scott, a local musician who played bagpipes for several years with the Dofasco Pipes and Drums. The original members met on Friday evenings to share their love of piping. The band membership now includes experienced players on both instruments and an active teaching programme allows beginners of all ages to learn piping and drumming.
Royal Canadian Legion Branch 163 Pipe & Drum
Royal Canadian Legion Branch 163 Pipe & Drum volunteer based band serving the communities of Southern Ontario and Western New York. As a non-competing band we participate in local parades, fund raisers, special events and Legion functions. Our band has been in existence for over 40 years and over those years we have had many exciting and rewarding opportunities as well as making many lasting friendships.
Tomato Soup Band
The TOMATOSOUP BAND was formed in 1992 by a few members of the Dutch-Canadian Society in London, Ontario who wanted to celebrate the upcoming Carnival (Mardi Gras) season in a style they knew well. In the southern provinces of the Netherlands, in the days that precede the beginning of Lent, roving bands of amateur musicians walk from tavern to tavern with partying revelers in their wake. From the original five, TOMATOSOUP has grown to include sixteen enthusiastic musicians who perform throughout the year. Their unique style and happy and spirited repertoire contribute to the multicultural richness of Canada.
The Barr Band
The Barr Band is a 50’s, 60’s, & 70’s cover band from the Hamilton/Dundas area of Ontario Canada.
Trickbag
Trickbag has been entertaining music lovers live and on record for over two and a half decades. They are now poised to open another exciting musical chapter in their long history. The recent addition of two new members, bassist Rick Miles and Steve Beach, a master of the mighty Hammond organ has revitalized the classic Trickbag sound. They join guitarist Larry Feudo, drummer Paul Panchezak and vocalist Donna Panchezak, veteran members who have been at the helm of the band since its inception.
Preston Scout House
Preston Scout House Band, of Cambridge, is one of the largest organizations of its type in Canada. Marching members of this popular drum and bugle corps come from more than 20 communities across Ontario and have previously been associated with more than 70 marching music organizations. Associate members are a vital part of the organization, providing support in such areas as fund raising, publicity, recruiting, souvenir sales, parade assistance, catering for social events, photograph and video production. In 2013, Scout House celebrated the 75th anniversary of its founding in 1938 as an innovative activity for members of the 1st Preston Boy Scout Troop, under the leadership of town pharmacist Wilf Blum. The band is named after the restored stable for brewery horses that became the home of the troop in the 1930s. Scout House became independent of the Boy Scout organization in 1954, adapting the Boy Scout uniform to tight black shorts, short-sleeved maroon tops, white gauntlets and Aussie-style hats. Before disbanding in 1967, Scout House performed from the American Midwest to the Atlantic coast, traveling up to eight thousand miles a year while winning more than 80 international, national, provincial and regional titles.
MM Robinson
MM Robinson Drumline has been active since 2006. Since then we have performed in hundreds of parades, events, conferences, tv shows and athletic events. In addition to being an entertainment drumline we are also a competitive percussion ensemble. We are proud to say we are the only Canadian High School to compete in the WGI Percussion World Championships and we are the current Drumline Ontario Scholastic A Provincial Champions.
St. Mary’s Marching Arts
Saint Mary Marching Arts is a part of St. Mary Catholic Secondary School in Hamilton, Ontario. 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015 Ontario Provincial PSA-SS Champions. 2015 and 2016 New York State Percussion Circuit PSA-SS Champions. Saint Mary Marching Arts programs are managed by Impact Percussion Inc.
Teen Tour Band
The tradition of excellence began on December 15, 1947, when 75 nervous members of the Burlington Boys and Girls Band gave their first performance under the leadership of Elgin Corlett, the band’s founder and first music director. The band’s first appearance outside Ontario, Canada took place in the summer of 1949, when the Burlington band traveled to Warren, Ohio to perform at a football game and play a concert.
By 1952, the membership had climbed to more than 150 boys and girls. In 1965, the name changed to the Burlington Teen Tour Band. Management developed a philosophy that would focus on producing a better band that would keep the members active year-round and organize annual tours.
Since its humble beginnings in 1947, the Burlington Teen Tour Band has grown into Canada’s oldest and largest youth marching band. They have had the honour and privilege to represent Burlington, Ontario and Canada around the world in such countries as: England, Republic of Ireland, France, Japan, The Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.
