Lisa and Jim Taylor have been integral parts of Mountville since the beginning back in 1994; Lisa doing a spectacular solo set of her amazing songs, and Jim running sound. And Jim has been running Mountville sound every year since, guiding us through each new door as the technology got more advanced and the presentation more professional. Festival audio is a big challenge under the best of circumstances with the usual challenges of changing quickly from one act to the next. A veteran audio-video engineer whose resume includes work both for the Pentagon and the Washington football team/FedEx Field, Mountville is Jim's time to be creative and make the art and music shine.

And does he ever! When the pandemic hit, Jim became our production engineer, helping us tie in artists live from eight different locations coast to coast with a professional broadcast livestream. His skill as an engineer are nearly matched by his creativity in problem solving. As we planned out our 30th Annual this spring, Jim carefully planned, procured and of course double-tested a three camera configuration for live video and the hardware to switch feeds and send our broadcast out to the world live on YouTube.

Jim and Lisa also put together the side screen projector which allowed us to easily share artist names, information, and highlight our underwriters - another new adventure for 2024. Between sets, we were able to feed content from the screen to our broadcast as well. It was an amazing elevation to the Mountville experience, and it had to be done with temps in the high 90s!

For several years now, “Mountville kid” Garrett Langley has been Jim's right hand man, pretty much taking over the operation of the main live audio feed and monitor mixes to the stage (Garrett even sounds like Jim on stage through the talkback mic!). Garrett started doing sound with Jim while he was still in high school, using his Mountville experience to help with theater and concert productions at school. Together Jim and Garrett ensure that our live sound operations are smooth as a festival can be without a Coachella or Bonnaroo level budget.

We're lucky to have Les Thompson on our team too! Les is of course known for his time as a founding member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, but for the past 15 years he's been the Technical Director at our Franklin Park Arts Center in Purcellville. In addition to his long and distinguished career as an audio engineer including at his nearby Cabin Studios, Les designed and installed Franklin Park's top-tier broadcast facilities during the pandemic. And despite having shoulder surgery a few weeks before Mountville leaving him with one working arm, Les ran all the cameras, moved them as needed, helped get our artists properly positioned to be well-lit and thus well-seen.

Garrett's fianceé Lydia Damoose has become our broadcast operator. Lydia handles all the outward-facing parts of the broadcast, flying the informational chyrons in and out of the picture, as well as engaging with our online audience gracefully and graciously. It was not an easy job this year with all of the struggles getting our video and audio feeds properly activated!

Lydia and Lisa Taylor handled the screen content along with a few other helping hands. Together with lighting director "Whiz Bob" Sneed's beautiful illumination and mood-setting, these folks made it possible to share our work with our audiences in-person and online at a quality level befitting the 13 fabulous artists who worked their own magic on this year's stage.

For Jim, Garrett, Les, Lydia, Lisa, Bob and everyone else who lent a hand to make this the best-produced Mountville ever, we are standing and applauding with gratitude!