The Multi-Award Winning North Fork Valley Community & Parade Band, founded, led and directed by Jeannette Carey and David Alderdice, was formed in 2015 as a way to get local music students and community members of mixed ages and experiences playing music together. Their summer repertoire consists of fun funky street music from around the world and their winter repertoire consists of big band swing, Latin and jazz music. As of 2026, the band includes around 40 active multi-generational band members spanning 7 decades and their performances are fun for the whole family.
Music students and community members of all ages who can play their instrument and read sheet music (at least at a beginning level / playing their instruments for a year or more) are welcome to join the band. If you are interested in potentially joining the band, please come and check out a rehearsal. If you used to play an instrument, but feel super rusty, no worries as we have seen it happen multiple times where an adult who used to play an instrument in High School but hasn’t touched their instrument for 20 years or more has started coming to rehearsals and realize that the skills come back a lot quicker than you’d think. The band meets for rehearsals most Monday evenings in Paonia throughout the school year (taking some weeks off) and meets sporadically during the summer months.
The NFV Community & Parade Band usually plays around 4 concerts and 4 parades per years.
The NFV Community & Parade Band has taken parading on the Western Slope to a new level with their fun arrangements and their super funky mountain town street music. They have won the Grand Champion Award at the 2016 Pioneer Days Parade in Crawford as well as 1st place award in the music category two years in a row. They also won the overall 1st Place Award in the Paonia Cherry Days Parade in 
July of 2017. Their first evening guerrilla appearance on Grand Avenue during the 2016 Mountain Harvest Festival has been considered an epic moment in the history of the festival and the NFV Community & Parade Band have been a crowd and presenter favorite ever since. Having a professional 40 piece multi-generational band parading through the closed off Grand Avenue playing funky music from New Orleans, Eastern Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and the Americas has become a highlight of the Mountain Harvest Festival experience year after year.
The NFV Community & Parade Band has been providing a series of 3 Big Band Swing Nights every winter/spring. With it’s nice big dance floor and good acoustics, Memorial Hall in Hotchkiss, Colorado, has become our home venue for the Swing Nights. Starting off with a swing dance lesson followed by 2 sets of live swing music from the band, these events have been super fun bringing folks from many walks of life together in one place. It’s reminiscent of the country barn dances of years past where all the generations come together to dance and listen to live music.
If you are not a musician, but would like to get involved, the NFV Community & Parade Band is always in search of artists, carpenters, and other helpers to make, and to puppeteer, different parade masks and large multi-person parade puppets.
The NFV Community & Parade Band experience is offered free as a gift with no dues or membership fees. Dedication and regular attendance is greatly appreciated. If you would like to support the band in it’s ongoing commitment to stay free for the members, even when there are lots of expenses (including buying new music and charts for the band to learn and perform, buying uniform t-shirts for band members to wear on parade, renting venues for performances, hiring sound guys, dance teachers & guest teachers, buying music stands, providing stipends for band administrative work, etc…), feel free to contact us (link below).
If you have any instruments that are not being used, your old instruments can be donated to the NFV Community & Parade Band for a tax write-off and be put to good use by students in need of an instrument. If you feel that you are not experienced enough to play in the band yet, but have the desire, come visit a rehearsal, or contact us (link below) and we can recommend a good local private teacher who can get you the basics you need to play in the band rather quickly.
If you’d like to join the Band in rehearsal, in parade, or in the puppet troupe, or if you’d like to bring the NFV Community & Parade Band to liven up an event, festival, or parade that you are a part of, or if you have any community band, big band swing or funky parade related questions, or if you’d like any more information about joining or booking the NFV Community & Parade Band, please contact us.
Here are a some videos of the NFV Community & Parade Band in action throughout the years and below that are some more pictures of the band in concert or in parade.
