From a Patriot’s Fife to a Soprano’s Voice

Terri Allen And Pamela Simonson Parker Bring A Family’s Revolutionary War Story To The Stage In Oxon Hill

Freedom’s Fifer: The William Stives Story

Saturday, Nov. 7, 1 PM, OXON HILL LIBRARY

A fife is small enough to tuck into a coat, but its bright, piercing notes could carry orders to soldiers on the march. More than two centuries after William Stives played that instrument in George Washington’s army, two of his descendants are bringing his story to an audience in Prince George’s County. This time, the storyteller is Terri Allen, and the voice carrying the music belongs to her daughter, classical soprano Pamela Simonson Parker.

On Saturday, Nov. 7, mother and daughter will present Freedom’s Fifer: The William Stives Story, a free dramatized musical production at Oxon Hill Library. Allen will narrate, and Parker will sing in a program that puts a Black Patriot at the center of an America 250 celebration. The afternoon also calls attention to the contributions of Black Americans, Indigenous people and women whose stories often receive less space in accounts of the Revolution.

Stives served as a fifer in the 3rd New Jersey Regiment. He endured the winter at Valley Forge and marched with Washington’s army. The tunes a fifer played could tell soldiers what to do and give them something to listen to on a long march. After the war, Stives settled in New Jersey’s Sourland Mountains, where he and his wife, Catherine Vanois, raised ten children. Parker is his sixth great-granddaughter.

The family traces its musical tradition back to Stives and through six generations to the artists carrying it forward today. Allen, the former executive director of the Coalition for African Americans in the Performing Arts, co-founded CAAPA with Parker and her brother, Victor Simonson. They built the organization to create performance opportunities for Black classical musicians and introduce more listeners to the music. Allen spent years helping other artists find an audience. At the library, she’ll put that same gift for bringing people together to work telling her own family’s story.

Readers can explore the family history in the current Summer/Fall 2026 edition of Prince George’s Suite Magazine. The issue’s America 250 feature follows Allen’s family story back to Stives, connecting the Revolutionary War musician with the Prince George’s arts advocate who will tell his story onstage. Get the magazine here.

Parker has made a career onstage and in the classroom. A lyric soprano who has performed with the Prince George’s Philharmonic, she has also introduced young people to opera as a Glimmerglass Festival teaching artist. Maryland Citizens for the Arts honored her with its 2025 Sue Hess Legacy Arts Advocate of the Year Award. At Oxon Hill, the work of performing and the work of teaching come together as she helps tell the story of the musician in her family who carried a fife into the Revolution.

The performance begins at 1 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 7, in the Oxon Hill Library Lecture Hall, 6200 Oxon Hill Road, Oxon Hill. Admission is free. The Oxon Hill branch of the Prince George’s County Memorial Library System, CAAPA and the Harmony Hall Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution are sponsoring the program.