Strike Up The Band for Middleburg Music Festival

Strike Up The Band for Middleburg Music Festival

By Leonard Shapiro

For most of the past decade, the Middleburg Concert Series (MCS) has added to the local cultural landscape with a wide range of musical events throughout the year.

It became increasingly difficult to schedule four or five concerts a year without conflicting with one or event or another—an art exhibit here, a garden tour there—when a decision was made to bundle their program into a jam (session) packed weekend of music.

The U.S. Fleet Forces Band will perform July 1 at 7:30 p.m. at the Middleburg Community Center.

Petty Officer Kristen Snitzer

And now, The Hunt Country Music Festival, Year Two, will take center stage— actually a variety of stages in and around Middleburg and Upperville—with “Americana, A Celebration of American Music & History” from Friday, June 30 to Sunday, July 2.

“We just thought instead of having individual concerts throughout the year, that maybe having it all at once would have more of an impact,” said Linda Taylor, a long-time MCS organizer. “It’s probably a lot more work, but we can present a huge variety of music and also do it on a theme basis.”

With July Fourth falling on a Tuesday a few days later, the local event calendar, save for a few organized fireworks displays, was pretty much wide open the weekend before the actual holiday. And the centerpiece event—a free Saturday night concert at the Middleburg Community Center by the Navy’s U.S. Fleet Forces Band—is as Americana as it gets.

The program presented by the renowned 45-member band will include all manner of music, from rousing military marches to the inspiring “1812 Overture.”

“We are so thrilled that they’re coming,” Linda Taylor said. “It’s going to be quite a show.”

The Norfolk-based Fleet Forces Band is under the baton of Band Master Lt. Joel Davidson, who has been with the group for 24 years. Like all the band members, he’s an accomplished trained musician and a career Navy man. So is trumpeter Kristen Snitzer—actually a career Navy woman—the band’s lead Petty Officer who also acts as its main administrator.

She’s been playing the trumpet since the age of 10, is a graduate of Ithaca College and a 16-year member of the band. Like all her fellow musicians, she auditioned for the band even before she formally enlisted, and “most of our people have college degrees in music and are in their 30s and 40s,” she said.

“It’s very common for most of us to make this a career,” she said. “They’ll stick around for 20 to 25 years. It’s a great job for a musician. You can’t beat the pay and the benefits, and we get great audiences wherever we go.”

They often perform in and around Norfolk, with its Navy presence, with a mission to support military ceremonies. But those 45 band members also splinter off more than occasionally to form smaller groups—a woodwind quintet, a brass quintet, a rock band, a jazz combo and more.

The Middleburg festival will get the entire 45-member Fleet band, as well as a number of other talented musical groups over the three-day event. Another highlight will be a “Music Crawl” that will feature four mini concerts held in three walkable locations in Middleburg starting at 2 p.m. on Saturday, July 1.

“There really will be something for everyone,” Linda Taylor said. “It’s going to be a great weekend.”

Details: www.huntcountrymusicfestival.org