Author Archives: Dan Bergeson

VBF 2022 Spring Fund Drive is underway!

Hello  Vintage Band Festival friends! It’s been some weeks since we’ve made the time to update you on our status. Planning is going well for another summer musical blowout July 28-31, 2022. Vintage Band Festival 2022 promises to be a spectacular celebration of brass band music, historical band music, multi-cultural band music and band music to dance to. Please make plans today to join us for one morning, one afternoon, one day or all four days. You won’t be disappointed!

We are in the midst of our annual spring fund drive. This campaign is critical to our 2022 plans for a robust summer festival. We need to raise $10,000  by June 1 in order to stay on the budget track that we put into place last fall. The good news is that we are halfway to that goal. By the end of the day on April 22, we had tallied $5,475 for the spring drive. This puts us at $15,475 toward our overall goal of $35,000 by the time the last note of the festival sounds on July 31, 2022.

Recently, we sent a mailing to some of our past donors. To those who have given so generously since our 2021 festival we offer our warmest thanks. If you haven’t made a contribution to Vintage Band Festival recently or have always meant to make your first donation, now would be an excellent time to do so! You may send your check to Vintage Band Festival, 204 W. 7th St. #130, Northfield, MN 55057. If you prefer to make your contribution with a credit card, go to www.vintagebandfestival.org , scroll down and click on the green “Donate” button when it comes into view. Follow the prompts to make a safe and secure donation. A donation in any amount is welcome, but gifts of $100 or more would be especially helpful at this time.

The festival schedule is close to complete and we will begin to share details in the coming weeks. Check our website, www.vintagebandfestival.org regularly for updates and follow Vintage Band Festival on Facebook.

Thanks for your support!

Wenger support continues for Vintage Band Festival

Christmas came early for Vintage Band Festival in 2021. In late November we received word that the Wenger Foundation awarded the organization $10,000 in support of our 2022 4-day festival, July 28-31 next summer. We are profoundly grateful for the confidence the Wenger family has placed in the VBF mission of wind band music performed in public settings throughout our hometown of Northfield, Minnesota.

The Wenger Corporation produces innovative products for the music education, performing arts and athletic markets. Harry Wenger, Owatonna, Minnesota’s own “Music Man”, founded the Wenger Corporation in in his basement in 1946 and It is celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2021. The Wenger Foundation has been a Vintage Band Festival benefactor since the festival’s founding in 2006.

Thanks for a successful Give-to-the-Max Day!

A great big THANK YOU to all of the 74 Vintage Band Festival donors during the month of November. We surpassed our $5,000 goal for Give to the Max Day by 30%!! That’s only 13% of our goal of $50,000 for next year’s 4-day festival, but it’s a great start. Thanks also to Doris Welke whose Early Giving donation won Vintage Band Festival a Golden Ticket worth $500. Thanks Doris!

There’s still plenty of time to make a year-end donation to keep us moving towards that 2022 goal. Please visit our website to donate online or send a check to 204 W. 7th St. #130, Northfield, MN 55057.

We hope everyone had a happy and safe Thanksgiving weekend!

www.vintagebandfestival.org  #GTMD21  #vbf2022   GiveMN.org

Vintage Band Festival awarded $10,000 SEMAC grant

On November 10, 2021, the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council (SEMAC) announced that Vintage Band Festival has been awarded a $10,000 Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund grant for use in staging the 4-day Vintage Band Festival 2022. The grant was one of five awarded to Rice County non-profits organizations.  Here are the other four:

• Faribault Parks & Recreation — $5,000 Arts and Cultural Heritage grant for Faribault Concerts in the Park series.

• I Cantanti Chamber Choirs — $5,000 General Operating Support grant for facilities & staffing.

• Northfield Arts Guild — $9,925 Arts and Cultural Heritage grant for focused arts learning, home school/after school.

• Paradise Center for the Arts — $10,000 Arts and Cultural Heritage grant for Marquee Children’s Theatre.

Vintage Band Festival will use the grant to help fund a number of brass and wind musical ensembles from Minnesota that will be invited to perform in Northfield in July of 2022. SEMAC has been generous to our organization over the  past 15 years and we are grateful to our elected representatives for continuing to support the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund that was established in 2008. This initiative benefits all Minnesotans!

Thanks to VBF Secretary Joy Riggs for her skillful writing in the SEMAC application!

Tuba Christmas in Northfield 2021 is CANCELLED!

Today’s public service announcement: the Vintage Band Festival Board has recently CANCELLED Tuba Christmas in Northfield for 2021. The event was to have been held on Saturday, December 4, but has been cancelled due to COVID-19 protocols at the venue. We’re saddened by this change in plans, but feel this is the correct decision at this time.

Thanks for your understanding. We’re hoping for a better situation in 2022!

VBF is gearing up for 2022!

The sounds of Vintage Band Festival 2021 still reverberate in our ears four months later. What a glorious day it was! If you’re wanting to hear the music again, we encourage you to visit Northfield Public Broadcasting for the complete performances of Jack Brass Band and Brio Brass. Thanks to Sam Temple and his colleagues at NPB for providing us with these recordings.

Our plans for Vintage Band Festival 2022 are in motion. The event will be held in Northfield, Minnesota July 28-31, 2022. The budget for a 4-day festival is approximately $100,000, 50% of which will need to come from individuals like you and businesses in the area. Gifts made to Vintage Band Festival in 2021 will be used to support the 2022 festival, which will feature more than 30 brass and wind bands playing nearly 100 concerts over the 4-day period.

Many of you received a letter recently outlining the financial needs for presenting the next Vintage Band Festival. If you’ve already responded to this letter, thank you! If you haven’t or you’d like to assist in leveraging your gift in other ways, there’s another opportunity during the month of November.

The 2021 edition of Minnesota’s 24-hour giving celebration, Give to the Max Day, will take place on Thursday, November 18, and Vintage Band Festival is joining the fun. We have participated every year since the first GTMD in 2009. Remember that each donation to Vintage Band Festival in any amount is entered into the pool for Golden Tickets to be drawn every 15 minutes and also once each hour. The lucky winners get to grant an additional gift or to the organization of their choice. The 15-minute Golden Tickets are worth $500 and the hourly Golden Ticket is worth $1,000.

There is also an Early Giving period from November 1-17. Any gift to Vintage Band Festival during Early Giving is eligible for a daily drawing of $500 and then put into the pool for all of the drawings on November 18. Give to the Max Day and Early Giving donations for Vintage Band Festival can be made at https://www.givemn.org/organization/Vintage-Band-Music-Festival .

Please consider a gift today and stay current with our 2022 plans by regularly visiting VintageBandFestival.org and the Vintage Band Festival Facebook page.

VBF 2021 Official Commemorative Program

Hot off the press! The Vintage Band Festival 2021 Official Program contains everything you need to know to have a great day in Northfield on July 31: band photos and profiles, the complete schedule for the day, donor recognition, words from the Board of Directors and our Founder, and of course, our many advertisers.

Thanks to everyone who worked on putting this together, especially the fine folks at By All  Means Graphics, VBF’s graphic design shop since 2006.

Click the link below to download the program. Paper copies will be available free of charge at the Festival.

VBF 2021 Program FINAL

Banda La Verdadera returns for VBF 2021

BANDA LA VERDADERA

This high-energy Minneapolis band is making its third appearance at Vintage Band Festival. Banda La Verdadera plays a type of traditional Mexican music that features brass instruments, woodwinds, drums and singing. The band performs a variety of pieces, including rancheras, boleros and cumbias. It often performs for weddings, parties, and other events.

Banda La Verdadera is sponsored by Nan and Dave Shumway. Banda La Verdadera plays at 1:30 pm on July 31.

Banda La Verdadera

Roseville Big Band comes to Vintage Band Festival

ROSEVILLE BIG BAND

The Roseville Big Band is a 19-piece swing band in the Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey style, with the Rosetones vocal quartet recreating the tight harmonies that made the Modernaires and Pied Pipers popular adjuncts to the Miller and Dorsey bands. 2021 Vintage Band Festival audiences will enjoy our Gershwin tribute and other timeless music from the Big Band Era of the 20th century.

In a typical year, they give 12 to 15 performances, including the Carleton College Mid-Winter Ball, the Minnesota Commemorative Air Force’s USO-style hangar dances, and concerts in parks and senior residences. Dr. Glen Newton has led the Roseville Big Band since 1989. He formed the Rosetones vocal quartet in 1996 to complement the band’s instrumentals and vocal solos and duets.

Roseville Big Band is sponsored by Merchants Bank  and Dennis and Janet Hahn. Roseville Big Band plays at 8:15 pm on July 31.

Roseville Big Band

Copper Street Brass will be in the house at #VBF2021

COPPER STREET BRASS

The six members of Copper Street Brass have style, substance and a flair for innovation, which has allowed them to transcend the brass quintet box and evolve into something fresh. Copper Street Brass was founded in 2008 as a professionally trained classical chamber music ensemble (which means it performs without a conductor) with two trumpets, horn, trombone, and tuba. The group presents exclusively its own music, expressing its artistic voice through a dazzling fusion of brass, keyboard, guitar, percussion, and electronic instruments to appeal to a universal audience. The band is a veteran performer at Vintage Band Festival.

Copper Street Brass is sponsored by Lois and Noel Stratmoen and Deb and Rod Christensen. Copper Street plays at 6:45 on July 31.

Copper Street Brass