Middleburg’s Blue Mountain Songbird, Bess Putnam, Performs at Foxcroft School

MIDDLEBURG, VA — Foxcroft School recently hosted local singer, songwriter, and musician Bess Putnam as its 2026 Helen Cudahy Niblack ’42 Visiting Artist. Known as the Blue Mountain Songbird, Putnam shared her passion and process with the Foxcroft community.

Beginning with a song, Putnam captured the audience from the first notes as she sang about growing up nearby in a family of musicians, singing, “They raised me up to love the land and sing the songs caught in my chest,” foreshadowing themes that would appear throughout her presentation.

Responding to questions posed by Head of School Dr. Lisa Kaenzig, Putnam spoke about the importance of storytelling in the songs she writes, sharing, “The way that I use my storytelling is to exact change by lifting up the things that I love instead of tearing down the things that I don’t.”

She also enjoys weaving historical narratives and an appreciation for the region’s heritage into her songs, happily confessing, “I’m a history nerd. I don’t care who knows it. I love it.” Her themed performances have included “Christmas in Camp” for the Civil War Convention in Middleburg, and a 300-year history of agriculture in the area.

“About six years ago,” she shared, “I joined the Virginia Piedmont Heritage Area (VPHA) Association because I believe very fervently in the preservation of open space, primarily for agricultural purposes. They had lots of historic programming … but they didn’t bring music into what they were doing, so [now] we do a history of agriculture.”

Noting that Foxcroft’s mission is to help our students explore their unique voices, Kaenzig asked Putnam how she learned to trust her voice and her advice on that for students. “When I’m speaking to the general population … what I can say is to try many different experiences and be very forgiving to yourself.”

“When I am speaking to artists,” she continued, “…put the hours in. You can’t say that you tried your best when you didn’t put in the hours. Second … embrace the mistake. I write in pen, and I do that intentionally, so that I can look back at my notes and see where I messed up and be okay with that. What’s really wonderful about that is sometimes what was a mistake for one endeavor is a win for a different one. So I never write in pencil. I don’t want to erase the ideas. The ideas are there for a reason.”

During the Q&A, Putnam was asked if she had always been certain about her passion for music as a career, which she answered by talking about her time in Los Angeles, where she tried her hand in the music industry. “I went out there, and it was so weird,” she recalled. “It was not at all the way that I connect with music. When I was out in L.A., they were trying to get me to be a mold that already existed, because that had proven successful. But when we’re looking at music as art for the service of others in our community, that opens it up to me just being me.”

Before sharing one last song, Kaenzig asked Putnam what she hoped the audience would get from the experience of hearing her performance. “I do hope that everyone can connect to something real, that they can connect to those literal vibrations of the love and respect that I have for the people who made me and for the people that I made. The shows that I put on for VPHA, 100%, the goal is to connect each soul to the land under their feet. I need you to understand place. I’m hoping that you feel connected. Today, where it is so easy to connect across the planet, it’s easy to lose what we have right here and right now.”

Following her presentation and performance, Putnam hosted a workshop for budding songwriters and musicians as part of Foxcroft’s annual weeklong Festival of Arts.

Established in 2007 by Austi Brown ’73 in memory of her mother, the Helen Cudahy Niblack 1942 Arts Lecture Series seeks to bring a variety of fine, literary, performing, and practical artists and designers to Foxcroft to share their work, the nature of the creative process, and the breadth of artistic pursuits with both students and the community. It has sponsored visits by a Broadway actor and director, a champion cowboy poet, hip-hop artists from Senegal and New York, musicians, storytellers, and more.

Photo courtesy of Foxcroft School.

Posted on: May 5, 2026