On December 7 we kicked off the holiday season with Tuba Christmas in Northfield, the 5th year that Vintage Band Festival has presented Tuba Christmas on the campus of Carleton College. The event exceeded our expectations. We welcomed over 600 people in the audience and more than 60 tubists and euphonium musicians to the stage at Skinner Memorial Chapel.
Thanks to Carleton College for sponsoring our event. Thanks to Dr. Paul Niemisto for his conducting and his musical history lessons. And thanks to all those who donated and to our faithful volunteers. Merry Christmas to you and yours!
My mother always told me to double and triple check dates when putting them in writing. Sorry Mom!
Tuba Christmas in Northfield is Saturday, December 7, not December 2 as the previous post indicated. December 2 wasn’t a Saturday so you probably figured it out, but just to be sure, we’re publicly admitting our mistake.
The conductor of Tuba Christmas in Northfield is Dr. Paul Niemisto. Paul is the founder and artistic director of Vintage Band Festival. He recently retired from the Music Department at St. Olaf College, where he taught and conducted for 38 years. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan and has a doctorate from the University of Minnesota.
Niemisto is also the founder of the Ameriikan Poijat (Boys of America), a Finnish American brass ensemble. In addition, he is the founder and conductor of the Cannon Valley Regional Orchestra, a community symphony orchestra based in Northfield, Minnesota that has been delighting regional audiences for over 40 years.
Since 1980, Mr. Niemisto has been traveling regularly to Finland, where he has taught at the Lieksa International Brass week; Klemetti Institute Summer Youth Orchestra Course in Orivesi, Chief Conductor and Conducting Instructor at STM Summer Wind Orchestra Institute at Murikka opisto, and has given courses at many Finnish conservatories, including Kuopio, Tampere, Jyväskylä, and Joensuu. He was a Fulbright Senior Research Fellow in Finland in 1999 and 2017. In February 2000, he was awarded the Finnish Military Music Cross (soltlasmusiikkiristi) for his years of work and research in Finnish bands.
Tuba Christmas in Northfield 2025 will be presented by Vintage Band Festival at 3:00 pm on Saturday, December 7, in Skinner Chapel on the campus of Carleton College.
On November 19 the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council (SEMAC) awarded Vintage Band Festival (VBF) a $10,000 Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund grant for its summer 2025 one-day event. Other Northfield recipients of SEMAC grants in this cycle are the Bridge Chamber Music Festival, the Northfield Jazz Festival, the Paradise Center for the Arts, and the Healthy Community Initiative.
The SEMAC grant will enable VBF to recruit 3 high-caliber bands for the schedule in addition to funding part of the audio technology necessary to achieve a great audience experience.
VBF 2025 will be held on Saturday, August 2, 2025 in Downtown Northfield, Minnesota. Without this financial support from SEMAC, it would be much harder to balance the budget of Vintage Band Festival. Thanks to SEMAC and thanks to the Minnesota voters who supported and continue to renew the 2008 Legacy Amendment to the state constitution that provides for ongoing funding for arts and culture in the state of Minnesota.
The Vintage Band Festival board of directors has decided that Saturday, August 2, 2025 will be the date for VBF 2025. The festival will take place in Bridge Square Park in Downtown Northfield, MN along the banks of the Cannon River. Current plans call for a schedule on that day from 9:00 am – 10:00 pm. There will be 10-12 bands playing 45-minute sets with a short break in between performances for stage changes. Riverwalk Market Fair will share the park with Vintage Band Festival. 30-40 vendors will be onsite showcasing artisan products, fresh produce, and prepared food from 9:00 am – 1:00 pm.
Vintage Band Festival will celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2026. Coincidentally, 2026 is also the 250th anniversary of the United States of America. We are hoping to do some programming that calls attention to this special date as well. Tune in to America250 for more information about this propitious celebration. Watch for periodic updates on the plans for celebrating these milestones in our local and national history.
November is Give to the Max season in Minnesota. It’s the time of year when Minnesotans share their charitable giving spirit with thousands of area non-profits all on just one website. Thursday, November 21 is Give to the Max Day and Vintage Band Festival will be participating once again.
“Research shows that individual giving from donors like you and me is the largest source of revenue for nonprofits each year,” said Jake Blumberg, executive director of GiveMN, the sponsoring organization of Give to the Max Day. “Give to the Max shines a spotlight on the power of our collective giving each year, showing that tens of millions of dollars for good can be raised $10, $25, and $100 at a time.”
Besides the convenience of using the secure GiveMn portal (www.givemn.org), there are other benefits to giving on Give to the Max Day. Donors can help Vintage Band Festival win part of the $100,000+ Prize Pool! Let’s explain.
Every time a donor makes a gift they are entered into random chance drawings that are held every 15 minutes during the 24 hours of Give to the Max Day. The winner of each drawing gets a $500 Golden Ticket that they can donate to the organization of their choice. There are hourly drawings for $1,000 Golden Tickets as well. In fact, there are nearly 150 chances to win a Golden Ticket during the month of November.
We’re grateful to GiveMN and all of the sponsoring organizations for the opportunity to use this site to help Vintage Band Festival fundraise throughout the year. We’re also grateful to our wonderful supporters and donors who make it possible for us to bring incredible sounds and spectacle to Vintage Band Festival each summer and Tuba Christmas each December.
If you’ve never been to the GiveMn website or shared in the excitement of Give to the Max Day, give it a try this year. We’ll be glad you did! (Pro tip: you don’t have to live in Minnesota to participate.)
Tuba Christmas in Northfield returns on Saturday, December 7, 2024. This fun event has been presented in many communities of the United States for over 50 years. Low brass instruments playing Christmas carols in harmony provides a listening experience that has no parallel.
The location for Tuba Christmas in Northfield is Skinner Memorial Chapel on the campus of Carleton College. The chapel is on 1st Street between Winona and College Streets on the east side of town. The rear doors (northside) of the building are accessible via ramped sidewalks. Parking is on city streets in the neighborhood.
Registration for musicians opens at 12:00 pm. There will be a rehearsal at 1:00 pm and a break from 2:00-3:00 pm. The performance begins at 3:00 pm. Registration is $10 for musicians and with that every musician will receive a commemorative pin.
“Carols for a Merry Tuba Christmas” books will be available for purchase for those who don’t own a copy already. There are books for both treble and bass clef readers. Large format books are $25 and small format books are $20. Tuba Christmas apparel will also be available in a variety of colors. Hats are $15, headbands are $10 and scarves are $20.
Cash, check or credit cards will be accepted. Checks should be made payable to Vintage Band Festival.
Tuba Christmas in Northfield is a free and family-friendly event. Be sure to tell your family to join the fun and spread the word to any friends who might wish to join us on stage. Musicians of any age are welcome!
One of the serendipitous highlights that some folks had during Vintage Band Festival 2024 was watching a pop-up concert given by the Alphorns. Maybe you found them at the Northfield Public Library plaza or later in front of Robin’s Egg Bakery or the Hideaway Coffeehouse and Wine Bar. Their lovely sound filled the air downtown in between the performances in Bridge Square. I can’t imagine what those horns would sound like in the mountain valleys of Switzerland!
Another unexpected moment was the appearance of Maurice “The Music Man” before the festival began on Friday. Maurice drove all the way from Indiana with a truck loaded with musical instruments for sale. He parked his vehicle behind the VBF stage and opened it up to reveal dozens of brass and wind instruments from various eras of the 19th and 20th centuries. Throughout the day on Saturday, musicians from the VBF roster stopped to chat and sample Maurice’s fare, and some made purchases that they hadn’t expected to make before arriving in Northfield.
Photo credit: Off Beat Magazine
Maurice told me that he acquires his inventory in many ways and that some of the instruments need TLC before they’re ready for sale. He has two colleagues that help him with repairs, but even in his 80s, he’s the only one who takes the show on the road.
A few days after VBF 2024, I did a Google search on Maurice. I figured that someone somewhere must have written a story about him and I wasn’t wrong. I found a piece in Off Beat Magazine from 2018 titled “Maurice the Horn Wizard”, by Noé Cugny. Turns out that Maurice was a regular for years at the annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, but he got his start in Paris at the age of 17.
I have two regrets about my time with Maurice. I didn’t get a picture of him and I never caught his last name!
There’s more summer music yet to come in 2024 in Northfield, Minnesota. In June we enjoyed the Northfield Community Band concerts in Bridge Square. In July there was the debut of the Northfield Jazz Festival in Way Park and the first-ever two-day Vintage Band Festival in Bridge Square.
Beginning August 18th, the Bridge Chamber Music Festival returns for a weeklong run at multiple locations throughout the city: Carleton College, St. Olaf College, St. John’s Lutheran Church, The Grand Event Center, and The Northfield Depot. 2024 is the 25th Anniversary of this beloved Northfield tradition. The complete schedule can be found here.
The festival was founded in 1999 by David Carter, a member of the music faculty at St. Olaf College and continues today under Artistic Director Francesca Anderegg. This year’s lineup features the Arianna String Quartet, Stone Arch Brass, the Northfield Jazz All-Stars, and the Balkanicus Ensemble.
Vintage Band Festival 2024 is one week away. In past newsletters this spring and summer we’ve been highlighting the bands that will be performing at VBF 2024 on July 26-27. If you missed any newsletters or want to get a refresher, the complete schedule of concerts and all of the band profiles are on our website www.vintagebandfestival.org. Just click on the pull-down tab “VBF 2024”.
Today we want to thank our sponsors and community partners for their support. Without their financial and logistical support we would not be able to do what we do. Our Festival Sponsors this year are the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council (SEMAC), the City of Northfield, JoAnn Polley and Mark Ulmer, Mary Rosenberg, David and Nan Shumway, and Barbara Zaveruha and Glen Castore.
Our 2024 Stage Sponsors are Community Resource Bank, Merchants Bank, David Clarke, David and Martha Brown, Lee Engquist, Tyler and Kari Holden, and Lois and Noel Stratmoen.
A huge shout out to Isaac Leonard at Festival Production Services and Roger Fette at Fette Productions for our stage, audio and lighting tech. Thanks also to By All Means Graphics/Graphic Mailbox for our marketing support, Kathy Bjerke, our accountant and Jim Haas, our donor database manager.
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