Category Archives: VBF 2022

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!

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.