By Rita Christopher, Courier Senior Correspondent:
When she’s at a fife and drum muster and people yell “Deep River,” Emily Steindl knows who they are looking for.
“People who don’t know me just call me Deep River,” she explains.
Since she was a 5th grader, Emily, who just finished her freshman year at Valley Regional High School, has been the drum major of the Deep River Junior Ancient Fife and Drum Corps.
The Junior Ancients are hosting the Tattoo, the traditional musical celebration that occurs on the Friday night before the Deep River Ancient Muster itself. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Tattoo and the Junior Ancients will play not only by themselves but also with the Deep River Drum Corps. The Tattoo is Friday, July 17 and the muster Saturday, July 18.
The drum major leads the corps in parade and performance, signaling when to start and stop marching, when to turn, and when to play. Field managers, among them Emily’s mother Linda, run along the parade route signaling if there are any upcoming problems. Emily recalls once having to move the marching columns to the side of the road to let a fire truck.
Marching in front of the corps, she can sneak an occasional backward glance and she says that sometimes she can see reflections of what is going on in the shiny round knob of the mace she carries.
“Usually you just have to use common sense,” she says.
Dressed in colonial costume, Emily admits that she gets hot, but adds that she’s more fortunate than the fifers and drummers. She doesn’t wear a heavy woolen vest as they do, but a lighter waistcoat and a blouse with an elaborate ruffle at the neck. Over her black pants she wears gaiters with shiny buttons and the whole outfit is topped by a colonial tricorn. Underneath, Emily admits, she wears a tank top and shorts so she can peel out of her costume as soon as the performance is over.
According to Jessica Nevins, who has two sons in the Junior Ancients, Emily is a commanding figure as she leads the corps. According to Jessica’s son Jack, a member of the corps, Emily can be a demanding taskmaster.
“I want to make everything sharp and exact. I am picky about details because I want people to do things perfectly,” she says.
Emily drills corps members weekly in the Deep River Elementary School gymnasium. She says that doing an about face cleanly is the most difficult command.
“I think about half of them get it right,” she says.
At musters, when the corps performs on a field, they do marching maneuvers, including a new one Emily developed after seeing it done by another group—marching figure eights. She says Marilyn Malcarne, the marching instructor for the Junior Ancients, helped her perfect the move.
Emily joined the Junior Ancients when she was in third grade because her older sister Lauren Cianciaruso had. She started out playing the fife, though she had no prior musical training. The corps, she explains, provides music lessons for members who need to learn how to play. Before becoming a musical participant, members must perform six specified songs by heart. In the meantime, they can march as part of the color guard. Emily just couldn’t master the six songs, although she practiced for a year.
“I failed the test miserably,” she says.
Still, she didn’t want to give up on the Junior Ancients. From the beginning, she liked being a part of the group.
“I liked the people; I liked the sense of community,” she says, so when there was an opening for a drum major in the Junior Ancients and Emily took it on.
Now she’s a member of at least five different fife and drum corps, including a Swiss group that made her an honorary member after meeting her at summer camp for fifers and drummers held annually at the Incarnation Center in Deep River.
“I have friends all over that I’ve met through fife and drum,” she says.
At school, Emily says she is shy.
“The teachers say that she looks like a deer in the headlights when they ask a question,” her mother Linda adds, but notes Emily is a different person when she leads the corps.
“I love being out there on the field,” she says. “I don’t do sports. Fife and drum is really my life.”
The Junior Ancients participate in a number of parades and musters throughout the year, not only locally but as far away as Virginia. Still, for Emily there’s nothing quite like the Deep River Ancient Muster.
“It’s the best ever,” she says.
As she leaves the field after the muster is over, Emily says she has one thought in mind: “Only 365 days until the next muster.”
25th Annual Tattoo: Friday, July 17, 7 p.m. at Devitt’s Field in Deep River.
Deep River Ancient Muster, Saturday, July 18 at 11 a.m.; Parade from the corner of Kirtland and Main Streets to Devitt’s Field.
For more information on the Deep River Junior Ancients, visit www.drja.org
With almost one-third of her life devoted to the Deep River Junior Ancients, Emily Steindl brings seasoned leadership as drum major.
Photo by Rita Christopher