The evenings at VBF 2026 will be jammed with music to get your feet moving. Thursday night features K-Libre 24 and McNasty Brass. Friday we welcome La Clave Orchestra and Brass Messengers and Saturday the bill features Salsa del Soul and the MN Jazz Orchestra. It’s a mix of VBF veterans and first timers. Don’t miss a minute of it!
Can you be a Vintage Band Festival volunteer? Folks are need to staff the Information Booths at both Bridge Square and Central Park during the festival weekend, July 30 – August 2. Shifts will be 2-3 hours and task will be giving visitors advice/directions, taking donation, selling merchandise, handing our programs. Follow the link to sign up. https://www.signupgenius.com/go/60B0E48AFA92EA6FF2-vintage2/118012189#/
For information on all of the musical performances click on VBF 2026.
Come thrill to the crack of the bat and give it some ginger at a vintage base ball game; just leave the foul language at home – and look out for the daisy cutters. Watch the St. Croix Base Ball Club take on the Rochester Roosters in historic costume and with the original 1864 rules, also known as “The New York Game”.
The original rules demanded, among other things, the highest manners from players and spectators alike. Truly America’s sport, baseball began during the Civil War as young men looked to fill the interminable time between battles, and the game caught on like wildfire when the soldiers brought it home with them after the war. The game was full of colorful jargon: a bat was called “a willow” and the fans were called “cranks”. Pitchers were “hurlers” and batters were “strikers”. The rules challenge the contemporary die-hard: no gloves, no catching equipment, no pitching mound, the hurler throws the ball underhand, batters are out if the ball is caught in the air or after a single hop, and only one ball is used for the entire game.
Today there are 400 active clubs in the Vintage Base Ball Association. There is an annual two-day festival in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania where 24 teams play 48 games on five ball fields. For many years Northfield fielded a team known as The Silver Stars, but time and other diversions have taken their toll on the team.
The Northfield game will be played on The Bald Spot at Carleton College and the game will begin at 2:00pm on Saturday, August 1, 2026. The Bald Spot is directly north of Skinner Memorial Chapel, 405 1st St. E. Due to ongoing construction, the best place to enter the campus is at the Winona St. and 1st St. E. intersection.
Music for the afternoon will be provided by RAVE Brass, a veteran Vintage Band Festival performer.
Friday morning, July 31, Vintage Band Festival will present a multi-media program titled “Music and Democracy: Living History in America” in Northfield’s Central Park. The United States is 250 years old and the music of the nation has changed often during those years. The program will chronicle highlights of those historical and musical eras. It will include spoken word actors including Theodore Roosevelt, reenactor brass bands in period dress, a Dakota drum group and singers and a folksinging duo.
Other concurrent activities during the event include food and drink vendors, non-profit organizations tabling to educate, inform and recruit visitors, a face-painting and make-your-own art booth and an all-ages bicycle parade around the park.
This is a free and family-friendly event. Children who wish to participate in the bicycle parade are invited to decorate their bikes prior to the event. Decorating supplies will be provided.
Click on the link for the complete schedule of the Music and Democracy program.
For a limited time, Vintage Band Festival 20th anniversary clothing items will be available for pre-order. Orders will be held for pickup onsite at the Festival July 30 – August 2 or shipped to customers (with added shipping charge) on August 3 following the conclusion of the Festival.
Items include short and long sleeve t-shirts, crew and hoodie sweatshirts, a polo shirt and a baseball cap. The t-shirt and ball cap will also be available for purchase during the Festival. The online t-shirt price of $20 is aa special pricing offer for the pre-order period only.
The pre-order online store will close at 11:59:59pm on Monday, July 6.
**Be sure to use the size chart when selecting sizes as there are no refunds or exchanges with pre-ordered merchandise. Customers are encouraged to contact Larson’s Printing, Vintage Band Festival’s local partner, with questions before ordering if necessary.
To access the online store, click on this link.
Type in the code: VINTAGE26
There is festival within a festival at Vintage Band Festival 2026. The nested festival is sponsored by the Historic Brass Society and is their Early Brass Festival Conference.
July 31-August 2, 2026
Northfield, Minnesota
Scott Muntefering, EBF Conference Host
Paul Niemisto, Local Host
Sandy Coffin, HBS Event Coordinator
Paper presentations related to any aspect of early brass or brass bands – including but not limited to band history, pedagogy, repertoire, performance practice, and biographical/historical information.
EBF Sessions will be in the beautiful 19th Century Northfield Train Depot.
Suggested nearby housing: Country Inn & Suites by Radisson (Walking distance to Train Depot)
$50 EBF Registration for paid HBS members ($35 HBS Student Member)
$60 for non-HBS members ($45 non-HBS Student)
Non-HBS members may join and pay the HBS Member registration rate.
VBF attendees may visit individual sessions free.
https://historicbrass.regfox.com/early-brass-festival-2026
For a detailed description of the papers and presenters, please visit https://vintagebandfestival.org/early-brass-festival-2026/.
Imnizaska Drum Group is a vibrant, intertribal drum collective deeply rooted in cultural preservation and education. They not only perform at public events like powwows, festivals and the State Fair, but they’re also making an impact through school and community programs — teaching history, musical technique, and traditional values. Their efforts foster unity, intergenerational connection, and cultural awareness across Minnesota and beyond.
“Imnizaska” means “white bluffs” in the Dakota language and it refers to the bluffs along the banks of the Mississippi River in east St Paul. Wicahapi Regional Park is on the top of the bluffs and is an indigenous burial ground. The St. Paul neighborhood has been known as Dayton’s Bluff since the arrival of European immigrants in the 19th century and the park was previously known as Indian Mounds Regional Park.
Imnizaska Drum Group will sing at the Living History through American Music program in Northfield’s Central Park on Friday morning, July 31 during Vintage Band Festival 2026.
The Finnish American brass band Ameriikan Poijat (Boys of America) has scheduled a series of concerts in southern Minnesota this summer. The Finnish ethnic brass band will visit Randolph, Nerstrand, Northfield, Owatonna, and New Prague during the last week of July. Two of their performances will be in Northfield during VBF 2026.
Poijat, with players based in Minnesota, has traveled widely, with performances is most Midwestern states, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Massachusetts, Canada, and Finland. Poijat’s 2026 program will consist of a mixture of concert pieces and old-time dance music, and American music observing the 250th Anniversary.
Ameriikan Poijat was founded in 1990 by Dr. Paul Niemisto. The band has played performances in some rather unusual settings, such as in an ice arena, in fishing boats on the Finnish Perhojoki river, on a raft in an abandoned mine, at Finnish border defense installations, at a McDonnell-Douglas military aircraft plant, in a Wisconsin cow pasture, on a Florida beach, at an instrument museum, in a barn, and in a one room schoolhouse. It’s not that they have exclusively sought out bizarre venues, but a seven-piece group is very mobile, and the Finnish brass music they celebrate seems to have drawn them off the beaten path at times.
Poijat’s members are all Minnesota residents and some are of Finnish descent. They have been sharing the charm of the old Finnish brass band music and have also performed the newer compositions for septet that have proliferated recently. Their main inspiration has been from brass playing colleagues and friends in Finland who have also been keeping the tradition alive and generously sharing their experience with us about this music. The Finnish brass septet repertoire is meaningful ethnic art and has an inherent musicality that is attractive to many listeners.
Ameriikan Poijat will perform on the Bridge Square Stage in Northfield on Friday, July 31 at 2:00pm and at Tanzenwald Brewing in Northfield at 5:00pm. For the rest of the Poijat tour schedule, visit https://ameriikanpoijat.org/.
Bill Reynolds, the leader of the Independent Silver Band, has an extremely colorful life, full of excitement and close brushes with fame. In the early days of his career, he and his wife Jeanne Gieszelmann Reynolds were the proprietors of the Reynolds Family Circus. Later they teamed up with other units to broaden their territory. Bill was the band leader and Jeanne was a performer in the ring.
Bill has also appeared as an extra in a number of Civil War movies: “Class of ’61”, “For honor and Glory”, “Tecumseh” and “Gettysburg.” He was Custer’s bugler in “Crazy Horse” and appeared in some documentaries for the National Park Service. The most recent movie appearance was “Letters Home” released in 2022.
We’re looking forward to seeing Bill and his band again at VBF 2026. There are bound to be more stories that we haven’t yet heard!
The musicians of Newberry’s Victorian Cornet Band are dedicated professional and semi-professional brass, reed, and percussion players whose performance is as close to that of a late 19th-century professional touring band as is possible today. Like bands from that era, the group ranges from six players to a full ensemble of 30. It usually tours with 17 reed, brass and percussion players.
The band only plays music that would have been heard between the end of the Civil War and the advent of the Sousa Band in 1892, primarily dance music. Concerts feature the most popular examples of polkas, waltzes, quicksteps, schottisches and mazurkas, as well as the march.
Playing old brass instruments is a chore and puts the contemporary musician at a disadvantage. Using an original mouthpiece adds an even higher road block. However, the Newberry group has overcome these obstacles with great skill and their use of original equipment certainly allows them to enter the Victorian sound-world with greater ability than most period brass ensembles.
The band is managed by Michael O’Connor and has appeared at Vintage Band Festival on six previous occasions. The band will perform at 6:00pm on Thursday, July 30 at the Grand Event Center in Northfield and on the Bridge Square Stage at 5:00pm on Friday. For the complete schedule of VBF 2026, visit vintagebandfestival.org/vbf-2026.
