Rosemont-based corps is 3rd going into DCI championships in Indianapolis

It all comes down to this weekend for the Cavaliers Drum & Bugle Corps, sponsored by the village of Rosemont.

After a competition season that included 35 shows and an 11,000-mile summer tour, all roads now lead to the Drum Corps International Championships opening Thursday in Indianapolis.

The Cavaliers have won the world title seven times and placed second in 2010, with fewer than 10 points separating the top 10 finishers.

Going into the finals inside Lucas Oil Stadium, the Cavaliers are seeded third, behind The Cadets of Bergen County, N.J., and the 2010 champions, the Blue Devils of Concord, Calif.

“Our spirits are higher than ever,” said trumpeter Thomas Druebner of Mount Prospect, a 2011 Prospect High School graduate. “This is one of the hardest shows we’ve ever done, but what makes it easy is that it’s so much fun.”

They call their original program “XtraordinarY” for its intense musical movements, but especially for its Cirque-du-Soleil type choreography.

“This program has them doing things that have never been done before in the drum and bugle corps industry,” said Craig Rasin of Downers Grove, a Cavaliers board member.

He points to one sequence where the tenor drummers are suspended upside down — held up by the contrabass players — as they play, followed by the some of the trumpet players being suspended while playing their horns.

“Sadly, I’m not one of them,” Druebner said. “There was a height and weight requirement, and I was too tall.”

The entire program is culturally diverse, as if different languages are being spoken. In one part, the drill team performs on stilts.

Musically, there is “Footprints” by Wayne Shorter, “Jungle Tango” by Jazz Mandolin Project and “Nature Boy” by Eden Ahbez, which is an underlying current throughout the show.

The Cavaliers are in third place, but “a lot can happen when you have a competition three nights in a row at the same arena,” Rasin said. “We’ve been within a point of the top two teams for the last two weeks.”

The finals are Saturday night.

The Cavaliers are the only remaining all-male corps among the top 10 contenders. Its 150 members include 20 from Chicago’s suburbs and others from all over the world, including Ecuador, Belgium, Japan and Canada.