- Being involved in actually making music for our community, it's an awesome legacy to be part of.

- The Lowville Village Band has been a cornerstone of cultural life in Northern New York as it celebrates its 200th anniversary in 2026.

The band's members come from a wide range of backgrounds, including students, military personnel, and professionals from various fields.

In addition to sharing a passion for music, members gain valuable experience performing locally, entertaining audiences at parades, festivals, and private celebrations.

I - Feel the Lowville Village band to our community especially is an essential hub.

We are in the north country where some people don't even know what upstate New York really is.

And so I think for us knowing that it seems like a lot of people move away from the area to seek employment, I feel like our band is a reminder of the longstanding traditions that still exist in our area and the power of what family and community is really about.

- Each member brings unique skills and experiences to the ensemble, creating opportunities to learn from one another and grow as musicians.

- We have currently about 55 members in the Lowville Village Band.

We have a wide range of ages.

Our youngest is 14.

We have a member turning 97 and we have a member turning 87.

So we have a really wide range of members in the group.

- People know our, our band locally and it keeps us here.

It keeps us strong.

And even we played for St.

Stevens Festival in Croghan last week and it was the same truth is when you have the strength of a community, the music is always there and even dates back to the Civil War time.

- The band's history dates back even earlier than that being founded as a union band in 1826.

The band would be renamed the Lowville Village Band around the 1930s after it began receiving financial support from the village.

Although the band's activity declined during the height of the Civil War, it recovered in the following years and has remained an enduring part of the community's cultural heritage.

In the late 1800s, the band hired a director with ties to one of the most famous figures of the American Old West.

- We had a lot of directors over the years.

One of our directors, Frank Thompson, he was really good friends with Buffalo Bill and Frank Thompson was one of the directors of the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show, and so they were really great friends.

So Buffalo Bill actually gave Frank Thompson a silver cornet as a gift, and we have that in our historical society here in Lowville.

So it's a really fun piece of knowledge with the history of the group.

- I enjoyed being in the Village Band because it's very interesting to see how many people actually show up for us and how many people from the community enjoy the band and music.

- It really brings the folks together.

You got 30 to 50 people all working for a common good.

The other way we're bringing the community together, of course, is the audience.

Come here on Wednesday night, any night during the summer, there's going to be maybe a hundred people.

There's going to be seats all over.

So we're really dragging folks out of their houses, really make them come be here, talking amongst each other, feeling like they belong here.

- You'll see somebody in the community, like in the store and they'll say, "Oh, I enjoy that band so much."

Like they recognize you.

And it's really nice when they support us like that because it makes our work getting the music together more meaningful.

- I think the band, to our community, is an important part.

Not a lot of communities around here have their own village band, so I think it's a very unique aspect to our community.

I would say just some favorite memories from the band is just continuing to make memories with my high school band teacher.

The director, Kelly Kilcer, she was my band teacher in high school, so it's just really special to me that I can continue to keep making music with her.

- Being part of the village band means a lot.

It's really truly is an honor that I get to say I'm one of the directors of this group.

We have such a long history and it's something that everyone in Lowville knows.

So many people come to our concerts and they come from all different places, different towns, communities to come see us perform.

So it's really great to know that I can be a part of something that's really historic for a lot of people.

- In Lowville for WPBS Weekly, I'm Ruth Quinal.