Sing me high, sing me low,
sing me when the cold wind blows.
In the rain and in the snow,
Sing to me, oh Shenando’.
Those words from a song by The Walking Roots Band inspired the theme for a first-ever festival of music and faith Saturday, Aug. 27, at the CrossRoads Valley Brethren-Mennonite Heritage Center in Harrisonburg —one in which many people with Eastern Mennonite University ties will have a part.
“I always felt we should be doing more with music, because music is so much a part of our traditions,” says Beryl Brubaker, president of the Valley Brethren-Mennonite Heritage Center board.
Brubaker retired in 2015 from a long career at EMU, where she was nursing professor, vice president of enrollment, provost, interim president and finally director of the Sadie A. Hartzler Library. After leaving EMU, she turned her energies to board leadership of the heritage center, a 24-acre interpretive center of the “historical and spiritual legacy” of Shenandoah Valley Mennonites and Brethren.
One of the legacies of the two cultures is the strong tradition of music, she said. “We’ll be celebrating our music tradition and bringing that together with the need to have a major fundraising event. We have other fundraisers, but this is the biggest one we have tried to do, and we anticipate it becoming an annual event. It’s become much bigger than I ever imagined.”
‘Walking Roots,’ Anabaptist roots
The EMU connections begin with the Harrisonburg-based Walking Roots Band itself, which headlines “Sing Me High.” The group includes Seth Crissman, Jackson Maust, Rachel Yoder, Greg and Kristina Yoder, and Michael Yoder—four of them alumni. The group had its beginnings when many of the members played together for worship at EMU. Their performance at the festival will include pieces from their “hymn reclamation project,” which casts texts of traditional hymns with new music and instrumentation, as well as folk music and other pieces.
“We strive to make music that honestly reflects God’s love as we’ve experienced it in our lives,” says Greg Yoder, who is also a member of the festival planning committee. “With our hymn reclamation project, we place ourselves in a stream of faithful followers that stretches back centuries.”
Yoder says that the Heritage Center, with its mission to “share and celebrate the story of Jesus Christ as reflected in the lives of the Brethren and Mennonites in the Shenandoah Valley,” is a “great fit” for the band.
“Many of our original folk songs center on life in the Shenandoah Valley,” Yoder says. “We plan to be anchoring the line-up for this festival for many years to come.”
The band has released four full-length albums, most recently “Way Back Home,” and an eight-song EP called “Prayers for the Church” that the band is distributing for free via online download due to support from EMU and Eastern Mennonite Seminary.
A bountiful buffet of music and more
Another group in the day’s line-up, the a cappella ensemble Good Company, includes EMU alumna and current staff member Katie Derstine. Other scheduled performers include The Hatcher Boys, the Ears to the Ground Family, John Schmid of Common Ground Ministries, The Highlander String Band, the Blue Ridge Mountain Dulcimer Players and The Springs Ensemble. All the performers are from the Shenandoah Valley except Schmid, an Ohioan who is the father of EMU alumni Adam and Amelia Schmid and has been called “the Mennonite Johnny Cash.” Recent Eastern Mennonite High School graduate Stephen Lowe will also provide a demonstration of “harmonia sacra,” a form of Mennonite shape-note singing.
Tickets for the event, which begins at 2 p.m., are $12 in advance for adults or $15 at the gate, and $6 for ages 6-18 ($8 at the gate). Children five and under can attend for no charge. Advance tickets are available via the website or at the heritage center.
Brubaker says they are hoping for as many as 1,000 people to attend. Parking will be available at nearby Harrisonburg High School with shuttle service to the heritage center.
The festival will also include displays and merchandise sales by local artists, a quilt raffle, food tents featuring pork barbecue and barbecued chicken as well as homemade ice cream and fare from local restaurant A Bowl of Good, hymn singing led by Nathan May and Jeremy Nafziger, and children’s activities. A campfire sing-along (with s’mores for purchase) led by Becky Glick and Mike Simpson of Simply Folk, Brent Holl, Seth Crissman and Greg Yoder will close the day, ending about 9:30 p.m.
While many music festivals have begun in recent years, Valley Brethren-Mennonite Heritage Center interim director Paul Roth says this one will be special.
“The uniqueness of this music festival is that it is on our beautiful campus which overlooks the Shenandoah Valley,” Roth says. “We believe that singing is a communal event which gathers people in worship and praise of God, even addressing issues where we believe we are called to give witness to another way of living in discipleship to Jesus Christ.”
Many volunteers from EMU and elsewhere are already assisting, but Roth says more are still needed. For information on volunteering or other details about the festival, visit the website, email [email protected] or call 540-438-1275. Information is also available on the festival’s Facebook page.
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