Category Archives: VBF News

VBF spring 2025 fund drive

Last fall, the VBF Fundraising Committee set a goal of $25,000 for the purpose of staging a one-day event in 2025. It’s a good time to report on the progress of the effort and the running total today. We sent out a letter in mid-November to a number of past donors and the response has been wonderful, but not record-breaking. As of May 1 the campaign total stands at just under $14,000. We’ve reached the 70% mark!

Recently, some of you have received a letter in the mail with in invitation to make a contribution to this effort. We hope that you will give it thoughtful consideration and if you haven’t made a donation in the past six months, please consider one at this time. Gifts in any amount are welcome, but contributions of $100 or more are critical at this time. We are hoping to reach our goal by June 15 to be confident of meeting our 2025 budget.

As we reported at the beginning of April, VBF 2025 will take place on August 2 in Northfield, Minnesota’s Bridge Square. The lineup we’ve secured is terrific and we hope that you are making plans to attend. Click on this link for the complete schedule and follow us on Facebook for more information and updates as they happen.

If you wish to make a donation using a credit card, visit www.vintagebandfestival.org and click on the big green “Donate” button. Then follow the prompts. If you wish to donate by mail, make your check out to Vintage Band Festival and send it to Vintage Band Festival/204 W. 7th Street #130/Northfield, MN/55057.

2026 will be the 20th Anniversary year of Vintage Band Festival. Stay tuned for forthcoming news about that milestone celebration!

Vintage Band Festival announces the VBF 2025 bands!

The Performance Committee of the Vintage Band Festival has finished another difficult round of decisions and is pleased to announce the roster of ensembles for our event on August 2, 2025 in Downtown Northfield, Minnesota.

Beginning at 9:00 am, the New Prague Area Community Band will play the national anthem and then provide us with a wonderful concert to open the festival. Next up will be the Sheldon Theatre Brass Band from Red Wing, Minnesota, one of two British-style brass bands in the lineup this year.

At 11:00 am we’ll hear the feel-good music of the Jack Brass Band. It will be great to have their NOLA sounds return to the VBF stage. The Bavarian Musikmeisters will be the band that plays during the noon hour and every time they come to town they get the entire audience to their feet for a couple of singalongs.

The Freier Department will take the stage at 1:00. They’ll likely be smokin’ hot like they were last year. At 2:00 Brio Brass returns from a VBF hiatus. Rick Rueckert and his band will treat us to many lively tunes, a number of them arranged by Rick himself.

The Lake Wobegon© Brass Band will follow Brio Brass at 3:00. The Lake Wobegon© Brass Band hasn’t played at Vintage Band Festival for several years and this year they have a new conductor!

The next group, Southside Aces, plays “vintage jazz for modern times”. They are a superb sextet from south Minneapolis and a don’t miss act beginning at 4:00.

La Clave Orchestra joins the fun at 5:15 with an amazing sound showcasing salsa, montuno, guaguanco, and cumbia rythyms. At 6:45 Selby Avenue Brass Band with Thomasina Petrus will again be on the VBF stage for a set featuring a true diva.

The last show of the festival will begin at 8:15 when RLC Jazz makes its VBF debut. The swing band from Roseville, Minnesota will play as many of the swing standards as they can while the street in front of the stage comes alive with dancers of all ages.

Be sure to put August 2, 2025 on your calendar right now so you don’t miss all the fun. Stay tuned to the VBF website and our Facebook page updates through the coming spring and summer.

Merry Christmas from Vintage Band Festival!

On December 7 we kicked off the holiday season with Tuba Christmas in Northfield, the 5^th 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!

Oooooops! Tuba Christmas is December 7

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.

Hope to see some of you there!

Meet Paul Niemisto, conductor of Tuba Christmas in Northfield

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.

SEMAC awards Legacy Amendment grant to Vintage Band Festival

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.

Vintage Band Festival announces 2025 and 2026 dates

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 20^th anniversary in 2026. Coincidentally, 2026 is also the 250^th 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.

Give to the Max Day is November 21

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 2024

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 1^st 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!

Maurice “The Music Man”

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 19^th and 20^th 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.

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!