NORWICH – Millennia Entertainment and the Norwich Fire Department are coordinating an Independence Day jubilee and announced this week they have hired a nationally-acclaimed country group to perform for the crowd.

Known as a country “boy band,” Emerson Drive will be lighting up the stage at the first ‘Fireworks over the Fairgrounds’ celebration this year on July 4. “Last week they were in the top 40 country artists,” said Millennia Managing Partner Terry Potter.

The group, in 2002, won the Academy of Country Music’s award for Top New Vocal Duo or Group. Emerson Drive was also nominated for a “Top Vocal Group of the Year” award at the 2007 Country Music awards.

They were named Top New Vocal Duo/Group by the Academy of Country Music in 2003. The group’s music video for the song “Fall Into Me,” received a nomination for “Breakthrough Video of the Year” in the 2003 Country Music Television Video Music Awards. Also Emerson Drive won a Billboard Music Award for “New Country Artist of the Year” in 2002.

The group has appeared at the Canadian Country Music Awards and won Group or Duo of the Year for 2002 and 2003. In 2002, the band was honored with the Chevy Truck Rising Star Award. The group has been repeatedly nominated over a dozen times for the Canadian Country Music Awards.