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ALEXANDRIA, Va. — An 18-year-old Alexandria musician performed at Valley Forge National Historical Park earlier this month as part of the national celebrations marking the 250th anniversary of American independence.
Ben Craven, a trumpet player, was among a small ensemble of student musicians who opened dedication ceremonies for a new storytelling firepit at the park's Muhlenberg Brigade site on July 3, part of the park's America250 programming.
"It's incredible to be on such a historic site for the United States' 250th anniversary," Craven said in a statement released by the festival. "Playing 'God Bless America' here — pretty powerful."
Craven, a rising freshman at the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester and an alumnus of the American Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, performed as part of the Philadelphia International Music Festival, a summer training program that pairs student musicians with members of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Two ensembles of string and wind players, ages 13 to 19, opened the ceremony with chamber music — a mix of patriotic arrangements and melodies that both American colonists and the court of King George would have known. The performers played among reconstructed wooden huts modeled on the quarters Continental Army soldiers occupied during the harsh winter encampment of 1777-1778, when George Washington and Prussian officer Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben drilled the Continental Army into a more disciplined fighting force.
The morning performance and dedication were the only public events at Valley Forge that day, as organizers scaled back a planned three-day weekend of programming because of extreme heat and a regional Heat Health Emergency — the same heat wave that gripped the Washington region in early July.
The weekend marked both the nation's Semiquincentennial and the park's own 50th anniversary. Valley Forge became a national park on July 4, 1976, when President Gerald Ford signed the legislation during the country's Bicentennial.
