OUR STORY

In 2001, the city of Flagstaff, Arizona acts to protect the brilliance of the night sky from light pollution, earning its designation as the world's first International Dark Sky City. Our name pays homage to this bold move, to our northern Arizona roots, and to “the bright and infinite possibility of those dark skies.”  Seven years later, Dark Sky Percussion is born.

Since 2008, we’ve worked passionately to instill in our members life skills through music education and performance. Leadership, teamwork, discipline, integrity and a relentless work ethic – these qualities develop a strong individual and ensemble, and will serve our members in their personal, professional and educational pursuits for the rest of their lives.

Our organization is now in Southern California and competes regionally each year through the Southern California Percussion Alliance [SCPA] and internationally through Winter Guard International [WGI].

Members are selected through an audition process each Fall and rehearse every weekend from October to April. Our ensemble is comprised of approximately 40 men and women, ages 17-22 who perform on a variety of percussion instruments. The two main sections are the battery – snare drums, tenor drums and bass drums – and the front ensemble, an extensive assortment of mallet and electronic keyboards, ethnic percussion and drum set. More than 700 members across the southwest and as far as Japan and Canada, have earned membership.

Dark Sky first competed in the WGAZ circuit and qualified as a WGI PIO Finalist in our first year of competition with the original First Avenue Music show titled “Fresh Snow”. In year three (2010) Dark Sky made the move to Scottsdale, AZ where we remained for the 2011 and 2012 seasons.  All three of these years saw the group grow in experience and rise in the PIO national ranks.

Perhaps the toughest and most unusual move for Dark Sky was the last, and likely final, move to Southern, CA.  This brought the design team together for the first time since 2009 and although it was a challenging year, 2013 saw the Dark Sky team near the top of the PIO ensembles at the WGI Championships performing the emotional “Sound of My Voice”.

2014 was a game-changer for the Dark Sky team as both SCPA and WGI promoted Dark Sky mid-season to the World Class (PIW) division. Our organization was honored to earn a Semifinal performance performing “The Hive”and thus began many exciting challenges in the PIW division.

2015 was our first full season in the World Class division.  Our membership and staff grew and we were again honored to perform in the WGI Semifinals with our program titled “Sketch”.

2016 marked a special year finishing as a PIW World Class Finalist, as well as our 9th year of continuous participation in the independent division. Performing the First Avenue Music production of “The Call of the Wild” written by our Creative Director, Seth Woodard, we had our first experience performing for the Saturday night sold out crowd at the Wold Class Finals.

2017 marked our 10th consecutive season and our ensemble took on an Ike Jackson inspired program called "What Do You Do With An Idea?"  Despite the visual challenges of this unique program, the Dark Sky team earned a WGI Semi-Final performance.

For year 11 Dark Sky took on a heavy concept and visual program titled "Transcendence", an avante guard program with ramps, costume changes and electrified Diddly-Bo's.  Our battery arranger Darren Van Derpoel joined our Creative Director for a compelling musical book and Dark Sky was back in the University of Dayton Arena for Finals night. 

Our 2019 program called PHRĒ got the online community talking as the battery performed the entire program with their drums attached to 10’ rolling poles, going “carrier-phrē”! This was Dark Sky’s first time as back-to-back PIW Finalist

We were all in for 2020 with our program “VU”, all about perspective and bending the views that audience members would receive. Unfortunately, March 2020 saw the Covid-19 pandemic bring everything to a screeching half and that included our beloved indoor season. Dark Sky documented their last weekend together with an emotional last performance in their rehearsal gymnasium at Duarte HS. For everyone involved, this will always be the season left unfinished.

With the pandemic still going strong in the Fall of 2020 and into 2021, Dark Sky pivoted to a film project to keep members growing and performing. “Polaris” is a 15 minute short film learned, performed and filmed under the challenging circumstances of Covid while celebrating our collective passion for music. This season was a combination of virtual instruction, outdoor rehearsals and filming at a variety of Southern California locations. The season lacked any competitions but plenty of creativity!

2022 saw us all return to the activity that we love. We performed the Scott Tanaka designed show titled “GÅP" and were excited to be back in Dayton for WGI Championships after a 2-year pause. Dark Sky was proud to make the semi-finals to top off a challenging return with an almost entirely new ensemble.

We are excited and working hard to continue our commitment to excellence, creativity and mutual respect within the marching arts community.  We are also proud of the many alumni carrying on their love of this activity as instructors in Arizona, California and Japan!

A “Dark Sky” means you can see millions of stars shining far brighter than under normal conditions.  We too aspire to shine long and bright as an independent World Class ensemble. We appreciate you learning more about Dark Sky and hope to see you back at a 2023 lot or visit us on our Facebook and Instagram pages.

Chronicle

2008  •  Fresh Snow  •  WGI Open Class Finalist (AZ)

2009  •  Legendary  •  WGI Open Class Semifinalist

2010  •  Red Thread  •  WGI Open Class Finalist

2011  •  Forever  •  WGI Open Class Finalist

2012  •  Lost  •  WGI Open Class Finalist

2013  •  Sound of My Voice  •  WGI Open Class Finalist (CA)

2014  •  The Hive  •  PIW Promotion  +  WGI World Class Semifinalist

2015  •  Sketch  •  WGI World Class Semifinalist

2016  •  Call of the Wild  •  WGI World Class Finalist

2017  •  An Idea  •  WGI World Class Semifinalist

2018  •  Transcendence  •  WGI World Class Finalist

2019  •  PHRĒ  •  WGI World Class Finalist

2020  •  VU  • incompleted

2021  •  Polaris  •  Alternative Film Project

2022  •   GÅP  •  WGI World Class Semifinalist

2023  •  Ad Astra  •  WGI World Class Semifinalist