Eleven elite drum corps will perform this evening at Vista High School's “Corps at the Crest,” a competition that showcases and blends music, dance and marching into art.

The performance and competition is part of the Drum Corps International's Summer Tour. The group calls itself “marching music's major league.” Last year's world championship drew 50,000 spectators to the Rose Bowl.

Drum corps, also known as drum and bugle corps, is a marching band that employs only brass instruments, percussion and dancers with flags – also known as a pageantry corps or color guard. These three elements are historically associated with military standard-bearing, which is why each band calls itself a “corps.”

The corps competing today will include the Santa Clara Vanguard, which finished fifth at the world championships last year; the Rockford, Ill., Phantom Regiment, which finished fourth; and the Blue Devils from Concord in the Bay Area, the 2007 world champions.

The show starts at 5:45 p.m. with Incognito, a first-year corps from Norwalk near Los Angeles. The event is expected to sell out, so those seeking tickets are encouraged to arrive early. Tickets are $20 for general admission and $25 for preferred seating, preferred parking and a program.

“These are the very best brass, percussion and guard performers in high school and college,” said Stuart Pompel, the director of the Diamond Bar-based Pacific Crest, the competition's hosting corps.

Pompel said he chose to work with Vista High School because of the high quality of its annual high school marching band tournament, the Vista Invitational Field Tournament.

All proceeds from concessions will benefit the Vista High School Regimental Band and Pageantry Corps.

The next event on the Drum Corps International Summer Tour will be tomorrow at the Rose Bowl. Five ensembles will compete compared with the 11 in Vista.

The other corps competing this evening will be The Academy from Tempe, Ariz.; Impulse from Buena Park; the Hawthorne Gold; the Long Beach Mystikal; the Pasadena Velvet Knights; and Yamato, the corps from Riverside and Kyoto, Japan.

John Earnest is a Union-Tribune intern.