High school marching bands across the Upper Cumberland will travel to McMinnville Saturday to participate in the annual Tree City Marching Festival.
Warren County High School Band Director Duane Farnham said the marching band competition was created ten years ago. Farnham said he started the event so local marching bands would not have to travel long distances for a competition.
“I would fill that kind of gap in geography, because I know we tend to go to, all over the place, and it just felt like it was constantly a huge travel expense,” Farnham said. “So I wanted to create something so our bands in this area could come to and enjoy.”
Farnham said at the end of the event, an estimated 750-800 students will all play together. Farnham said this year the bands will be playing “Hey Baby” by Bruce Channell and “Crazy Train” to honor the late Ozzy Osbourne.
“It’s fantastic,” Farnham said. “That’s why the bands keep coming back. They really enjoy that environment, and the kids get together. I think that is unique to what we do here in Warren County with the Tree City Festival. It’s something that I wanted to do from the very beginning because again, you know, they have their individual awards, but then we want to pull them all together because band is a group activity, a family activity, and we wanted to make sure that we extended that to all of the groups that come to participate.”
Farnham said another great thing about the festival is that all high school bands are welcome no matter the size. Farnham said small bands often do not meet the requirements to attend other competitions.
Farnham said there will be nine bands participating this Saturday, including a band from Georgia. Farnham said it is great to see so many people come to McMinnville for the festival.
“I think it’s wonderful to have all of these groups come,” Farnahm said. “We have a wonderful stadium at Nunley Stadium. It’s a great environment for bands to play cause it’s almost like, I mean, we have this nice enclosed sunken-in stadium, so it’s a really nice environment for those kids to come in, and it feels like a bigger environment than it may be. McMinnville is a small town environment. We are a small town community, but we have that big town feel with our football stadium, and the environment itself is just wonderful.”
Farnham said the festival got its name as McMinnville is known as the tree nursery capital of the world. The festival will start at 3pm and will be located at the Warren County Middle School.