BUCKHANNON — Eleven community bands from across West Virginia will descend on Buckhannon-Upshur High School on Saturday for the inaugural West Virginia Community Band Festival, a day-long celebration of music that ranges from concert pieces to jazz to — you guessed it — British pub songs.
The first notes ring through the auditorium at 10 a.m., when the Buckhannon-Upshur Middle School band kicks things off. From there, a new band takes the stage every 30 to 45 minutes, with the day finishing in a combined finale that pulls musicians from across the lineup into one mass band performance.
“We’re going to have 11 bands, and they truly are from all across the state,” said Sheila Zickefoose, president of the host Buckhannon Community Band. “We’re going to kick off the morning on Saturday with the middle school band, and then we, as the host band, are performing. And then we just start popping around the state. We have three bands from Huntington, two from Charleston, and bands from Clarksburg, Washington, Fairmont and Martinsburg.”
One of those groups will be making one of its first big appearances anywhere.
“The band from Martinsburg is just a year old, and so we’re the first big thing they’ve done since they got started,” Zickefoose said. “We’re beyond-the-moon excited for Saturday and being able to bring everybody together.”
The festival closes with two pieces performed by a combined band drawn from the day’s musicians — one a classical work by Billy Joel chosen by the host band, the other written by a member of the Kanawha Valley Community Band, whose director will conduct it. That handoff is more than ceremonial.
“We’re going to be truly passing the baton,” Zickefoose said. “They are hosting next year’s band festival.”
The 2027 festival is already on the calendar for May 8 at the University of Charleston — a remarkable stretch of planning for an event that hasn’t had its inaugural event yet.
“It’s really kind of scary how it’s all come together, because I expected blow-ups, things that were not going to work, and you have to reverse course and come up with Plan B,” Zickefoose said. “And it really has not happened that way.”
The whole thing started, fittingly, with a goodbye. A husband-and-wife pair in the Buckhannon Community Band were leaving for a medical residency at CAMC in Charleston, and the band held a small farewell.
“His wife said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we could all get together and play again sometime?’” Zickefoose recalled. “So that just got us thinking, ‘Well, how many community bands are there?’”
They found 17, and by August, Buckhannon’s band had organized a Zoom call to pitch a statewide festival. Roughly nine months later, it’s about to happen.
Inside the high school common area, around 10 local arts and crafts vendors will be set up throughout the day. Outside, three food trucks will be parked in the lot, with additional sweet-treat options rolling in for afternoon stops.
“We’re going to have food trucks parked outside so people don’t have to leave,” Zickefoose said. “But they’re also welcomem, if they would like, to come to town to find something else to eat.”
The musical menu is as varied as the food.
“We have concert bands that are going to be playing concert music. We have two jazz bands who are going to be playing jazz,” Zickefoose said. “And we actually have a brass band. And this is the third band from Huntington that plays British pub music.”
That brass band, she noted, is “completely off the wall” — a mix of Marshall University students and community band members.
For Zickefoose, Saturday is also a not-so-quiet pitch to anyone in Upshur County still eyeing an old instrument in a closet. She joined the Buckhannon Community Band when it formed in the fall of 2023, after her own clarinet had sat unused for three decades.
“It had been 32 years of my moving my clarinet from one side of the closet to the other,” she said, “always wondering and thinking, ‘You know, it’d be so cool to be able to play again.’”
She said the band plans to spend the day reminding people they don’t have to stay on the sidelines.
“If this has made you nostalgic and made you get that inkling of playing again, don’t be afraid. Don’t be hesitant. Just do it,” Zickefoose said. “Has it been a little painful at times, learning, relearning, hoping that the brain and body memory kicks in? Absolutely. But the best thing that I’ve done for myself in a very long time was joining this band, sticking to it, and I just can’t say enough about it.”
She encouraged people to give it a try.
“If people are interested, or even think they might be, get connected and come and have fun and enjoy it,” Zickefoose said. “Laugh when it doesn’t work and celebrate the little, wonderful victories that we have, because there’s nothing in this world more worth your time than making music.”
Performance schedule
- 8:30 a.m. — Vendors open
- 10 a.m. — Buckhannon-Upshur Middle School
- 10:45 a.m. — Buckhannon Community Band
- 11:40 a.m. — Brass Rhythm and Sax Orchestra
- 12:35 p.m. — Charleston Metro Band
- 1:30 p.m. — Brass Band of the Tri-State
- 2:25 p.m. — Kanawha Valley Band
- 3:20 p.m. — Greater Huntington Symphonic Band
- 4:15 p.m. — Eastern Panhandle Community Band
- 5:10 p.m. — Greater Huntington Jazz Band
- 6:05 p.m. — Fairmont Community Symphonic Band
- 7 p.m. — Shinnston Community Band
- 7:50 p.m. — Combined Band
