Category Archives: VBF News

Musical History on Display at VBF 2022

Since the beginning of Vintage Band Festival in 2006, the core of the multi-day event has been the appearance of historic reenactor bands from around the country. Vintage Band Festival 2022 will be no different.

Dodworth Saxhorn Band

Today’s Dodworth Saxhorn Band is modeled after the Dodworth Band of New York City, which was the premier brass band in the United States from the 1840s to the 1880s. The original Dodworth Band was directed by brothers Allen and Harvey Dodworth who were among the most highly respected musicians and bandmasters of the 19th Century. In 1985 musical instrument collector Alexander Pollock created the modern DSB as a living history project. The band performs 19th century music including compositions and arrangements from the Smithsonian Institute, the Library of Congress, private collections and university libraries as well as a few new arrangements by musicologists who are experts in 19th Century brass band style and instrumentation.

The DSB is led by Music Director Mark Felder and Artistic Director Lori Gould. Dodworth Saxhorn Band is returning to Vintage Band Festival after a nine year absence!

Independent Silver Band

In 1884 to 1889 the prosperous and energetic Illinois community of Mt.Vernon enjoyed the music of its own Independent Silver Band. In July, 2004, the music of the Independent Silver Band came to life once more. It is composed of 10 local men, all of whom attended the same church and Sunday school. By bringing together interested brass players and percussionists from Mt.Vernon and surrounding cities and towns in southern Illinois, the Independent Silver Band is composed of the proper team of dedicated persons, all of whom shared the vision to give audiences the chance to hear the music of a bygone time.  The band leader of Independent Silver Band is William Reynolds.

 

 

Kentucky Baroque Trumpets

Don Johnson was inspired to play the baroque trumpet, also known as the natural trumpet, in 2004 after attending the Historic Brass Society Festival. He introduced his friends to the instrument, and they formed a group dedicated to re-creating its sounds and styles, including signal calls, cavalry music, dance music, duets, solo music and trumpet with voice, which requires playing in different styles and tone colors. The band members also play modern instruments, and they dedicate part of their performance to educating the audience about the difference between the two types. The band’s Civil War band incarnation, President Lincoln’s Own, performed live in Steven Spielberg’s movie Lincoln and was selected to be in the National Geographic movie Killing Lincoln. This is the band’s third appearance at Vintage Band Festival.The band is currently led by Don Johnson Jr.

 

Newberry’s Victorian Cornet Band

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 plays only 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. The band is conducted by Elisa Koehler and managed by Michael O’Connor and is making its sixth appearance at Vintage Band Festival.

1st Brigade Band

The 1st Brigade Band of  Watertown, Wisconsin performs period brass band music from the 1860s on antique instruments, dressed in period clothing. They first began in 1864 when the Brodhead Brass Band enlisted in the Union Army as the band of the 1st Brigade, 3rd Division, 15th Army Corps. Upon leaving Wisconsin, they participated in William T.Sherman’s famous “March to the Sea” to Georgia and the Carolinas. In 2009, the 1st Brigade Band was awarded the Rueben Gold Thwaites Trophy for Local History for collecting and preserving history and sharing it with the public. The band leader is Doug Condon. The 1st Brigade Band is making its fifth Vintage Band Festival appearance.

For the complete schedule of Vintage Band Festival 2022, please visit the VBF website.

Evening entertainment for VBF 2022

Vintage Band Festival 2022 will boast three successive evenings of high-energy entertainment this coming summer.

On Thursday, July 28, the festival kicks off with the return of Brass Lassie, a Twin Cities Celtic fusion band with traditional flutes and pipes backed by a fine group of horns. At 8:30 Selby Avenue Brass Band takes the stage featuring Thomasina Petrus. Expect a wonderful melding of New Orleans Jazz with the blues. Thomasina Petrus is a veteran stage performer and recently starred in a production of “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill” about the life and legacy of Billie Holiday.

Banda La Verdadera

 

Friday evening begins with Banda La Verdadera at 5:00 followed by Mariachi Mi Tierra at 6:30. Both bands have become crowd pleasers at past Vintage Band Festivals. The final ensemble of the evening is Malamanya at 8:00. Malamanya plays traditional rhythms and melodies from the Caribbean and Latin America. They are legendary in the metro Twin Cities for those who love to salsa and samba. Malamanya is making it Vintage Band Festival debut.

Malamanya

Jack Brass Band

Saturday the music in Bridge Square starts at 9:00 AM, but things really start jumping at 6:00 when Jack Brass Band takes the stage. They play New Orleans jazz with a happy up-tempo style. They call it “feel good music.” Perennial favorites Copper Street Brass are up next at 7:15 and the evening closes with the return of Buddy Koopmans Orchestra. Big band sound with swinging rhythms and great vocals will fill the air.

Buddy Koopmans Orchestra

Three Links Care Center returns as a Vintage Band Festival Stage Sponsor in 2022

 

Sponsorships are vitally important to the success of Vintage Band Festival 2022. We want to welcome back Three Links Care Center as a Stage Sponsor for VBF 2022 and Hogan Brothers as a Day Sponsor. Pam Tidona, Marketing Manager at Three Links and Greg Heymans, Proprietor of Hogan Bros., are both enthusiastic supporters of Vintage Band Festival. Greg has told us that Vintage Band Festival weekend is typically his best weekend of the year!

Sponsorship benefits accrue at various levels, including frequent publicity on VBF social media, prominent recognition on banners and signs at the performance venues and in the official Vintage Band Festival program and an invitation to an exclusive donor reception just prior to the festival weekend in July.

Sponsorships are open to both businesses, non-profits and individuals. Stage Sponsorships are achieved with a $1,000 donation, Band Sponsorships occur at the $500 level, and Day Sponsors are named with a $250 donation. Donations of $3,000 or more are designated as Festival Sponsors. Festival Sponsors for VBF 2022 are the Wenger Foundation, the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and JoAnn Polley and Mark Ulmer.

If you would like to learn more about becoming a Vintage Band Festival Sponsor, please contact Jan Stevens, Fundraising Committee Chair, for more information. Jan can be reached at507-244-0500 or janofdundas@gmail.com.

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Northfield Shares recognizes Vintage Band Festival volunteers

April was National Volunteer Month. Throughout the month the Northfield News and Northfield Shares, an advocate of volunteer activism, highlighted several local organizations and individuals in a series of social media posts and newspaper stories. One of the organizations they chose to feature was Vintage Band Festival. During the 16 years that VBF has been in operation, all of the work done to present live band music in dozens of Northfield locations has been performed by volunteers. From the 12-member working Board of Directors to the homestay host families to the majority of the musicians, the volunteer ethic is alive and well. Thanks to all of our volunteers! Read about all of the volunteers honored on the Northfield Shares website.

If you’d like to volunteer to help with VBF 2022, check the VBF website later this month to learn what tasks need doing and when.

Dan Bergeson, Randy Ferguson, Jan Stevens at a recent VBF Board meeting

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!