Tag Archives: Brio Brass

#VBF2021 will be non-stop entertainment

Bavarian Musikmeisters

The schedule is set for Vintage Band Festival 2021(#VBF2021) on July 31, 2021. The day begins at 9:30 am in Bridge Square with a fun visit from the Above Average Tubas. Four tubas in harmony will provide a melodious and mellow start to the 12-hour brass band extravaganza. The day will end with the glorious sounds of the Roseville Big Band. Regional music fans will have heard them play at the semi-annual Hangar Dance hosted by the Commemorative Air Force Minnesota Wing. The audience is encouraged to bring dancing shoes to join the fun!

Here is the complete schedule for the day:

  • 9:30–Above Average Tuba Quartet

  • 10:30–Jack Brass Band

  • 11:30–Sheldon Theatre Brass Band

  • 12:30–Twin Cities Trumpet Ensemble

  • 1:30–Banda La Verdadera

  • 2:30–Lake Wobegon© Brass Band

  • 3:30–Brio Brass

  • 4:30–Bavarian Musikmeisters

  • 5:30–Southside Aces

  • 6:45–Copper Street (60 minutes)

  • 8:15–Roseville Big Band (90 minutes)

The Wenger Showmobile Stage will be set up on Bridge Square in Downtown Northfield. Riverwalk Market Fair (The art of a summer Saturday) will be sharing the Square with us from 9 am-2 pm with 30+ vendors offering fresh produce. ceramics, paintings and photography, baked goods, and lots of activities for kids. Vintage Band Festival provides the soundtrack for the day!

Volunteers are needed to staff the VBF Information Tent in 2-hour shifts during the day. If you’re interested/available, please send a message to vintagebandfestival@gmail.com with the hours that you could work. We also need volunteers to assist with set-up (7 am-9 am) and take-down duties (9:30pm-11 pm).

Check our website www.vintagebandfestival.org often for updates and be sure to follow Vintage Band Festival on Facebook as well. See you in July!

VBf 2019 Minnesota Band: Brio Brass

Brio Brass

Brio Brass has delighted and entertained audiences throughout Minnesota’s Twin Cities Metro area since 1999. Composed of more than 50 adult musicians, the group performs its own unique arrangements written specifically for its members. The ensemble’s large repertoire features a broad spectrum of musical styles. Audiences are entertained with fluid ballads, pop of all eras, show tunes, funky rock and lots of jazz. All of the music that Brio Brass plays has been composed or arranged by the director, Rick Rueckert. He has written more than 200 arrangements and compositions. Expect lots of humming, toe tapping and even dancing in the aisles! Brio Brass will play at the Bridge Square Main Stage for VBF 2019 on Sunday, August 4 at 2 p.m.

Brio Brass

VBF 2018 Band Profiles: Ameriikan Poijat and Brio Brass

Ameriikan Poijat

Ameriikan Poijat

The brass septet Ameriikan Poijat (Boys of America) appears at ethnic festivals, regional tours, and music conferences, presenting authentic social dance music and concert repertoire.The band is composed of Finnish-American musicians and teachers from Minnesota and Michigan, and its repertoire is derived directly from original hand manuscript sources found among Finn­ish bands and archives.

During the 1980s, group founder Paul Niemisto made contact with many Finn­ish brass players and discovered this relatively unknown musical tradition; he formed the group in 1990.Ameriikan Poijat has toured in Finland several times, most recently in 2013, and trav­eled widely in the United States and Canada.

Ameriikan Poijat will perform in Bridge Square at 1:00pm on July 28 at VBF 2018.

 

Brio Brass

Brio Brass

Brio Brass has delighted and entertained audiences throughout Minnesota’s Twin Cities Metro area since 1999.Composed of more than 50 adult musicians, the group performs its own unique arrangements written specifically for its members.The ensemble’s large repertoire features a broad spectrum of musical styles.Audiences are entertained with fluid ballads, pop of all eras, show tunes, funky rock and lots of jazz.Expect lots of humming, toe tapping and even dancing in the aisles! Brio Brass is led by Rick Rueckert.

Brio Brass will appear in Bridge Square at VBF 2018 on July 28 at 4:00pm.

Vintage Band Festival Announces 2018 Bands

May 29, 2018

Vintage Band Festival today announced the band roster for the Saturday, July 28, 2018 one-day concert schedule. The bands will play on the Wenger Showmobile stage in Bridge Square in downtown Northfield from 9am-10:30pm.

There will be several bands playing at Vintage Band Festival for the first time. Southside Aces will take the stage at 12 noon. This sextet from the metro Twin Cities is an all-star lineup that plays traditional New Orleans jazz. Their music garnered the declaration, “A true authentic New Orleans dance-hall style band” from the New Orleans Traditional Jazz Quarterly. They play for weddings, banquets, dance competitions, etc. as well as the best clubs in the Midwest.  They recently released their 5th CD “Second Thursday.”

Metro Brass is a group of 11 amateur musicians from the greater Minneapolis/St. Paul area that has only been playing together for five years. They all play in other ensembles, but come together for the “Metro Brass Sound”.

Twin Cities Brass Band is a European-style brass band that calls Bloomington, Minnesota home.

In addition to the newcomers, Vintage Band Festival is presenting the following favorite groups that have played in Bridge Square several times: New Prague Community Band, Sheldon Theater Brass Band (Red Wing), Ameriikan Poijat (Boys of America), Brio Brass and the Minnesota State Band. Minnesota is the only state in the country with a publicly funded band!

Headliners for Vintage Band Festival 2018 are Copper Street Brass and Buddy Koopmans Orchestra. Copper Street Brass takes the stage at 6:30 and Buddy Koopmans begins their set at 8:30. Buddy Koopmans Orchestra is a swing-style big band and the audience will be invited to get on its feet and dance!

Buddy Koopmans Orchestra

Copper Street Brass

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For more information and the complete festival schedule, visit www.vintagebandfestival.org. 

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

Vintage Band Festival Announces Band Roster for 2017 Festival

For Immediate Release

May 26, 2017

Vintage Band Festival Announces Band Roster for 2017 Festival

The band roster for the upcoming July 29 festival is now complete. Crowd favorites among the bands returning to Vintage Band Festival in 2017 include Bavarian Musikmeisters, Sheldon Theater Brass Band, Twin Cities Trumpet Ensemble, Brio Brass, and Copper Street Brass. New this year will be the Fife and Drum Corps from Historic Fort Snelling in St. Paul, Brass Lassie, and the McNasty Brass Band.

Historic Fort Snelling Fifes and Drums–The Historic Fort Snelling Fifes and Drums is a volunteer musical ensemble dedicated to representing the fort’s long history through music. The musical repertoire spans from the Revolutionary War through World War II, the years when Fort Snelling was an active post of the United States Army.

Brass LassieBrass Lassie performs extraordinary arrangements of Scottish, Irish and French music, mainly traditional, featuring a four-piece horn section, a terrific rhythm section, plus fiddles, flutes, pipes, vocals and some wonderful step dancing.

McNasty Brass BandMcNasty Brass Band is a collection of Minneapolis/Saint Paul based horn players and percussionists that fuse the Minneapolis sound with the spirit of New Orleans. The outcome of this fusion is hard-hitting dance music and high-energy live shows.

Copper Street Brass—The five 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 started in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 2007 and settled down in Minneapolis in 2008. The group’s new tour program, “The Evolution of the Brass Quintet,” features music from Mozart to Dave Brubeck to Adele. Its blend of musical styles and fusion of electronic effects and brass has wowed audiences in communities across the country. Last season the quintet performed for 4,300 students in 25 schools.

Brio BrassBrio Brass has delighted and entertained audiences throughout Minnesota’s Twin Cities
Metro area since 1999. Composed of more than 50 adult musicians, the group performs its own unique arrangements written specifically for its members. The ensemble’s large repertoire features a broad spectrum of musical styles. Audiences are entertained with fluid ballads, pop of all eras, show tunes, funky rock and lots of jazz. Expect lots of humming, toe tapping and even dancing in the aisles!

Twin Cities Trumpet Ensemble–Understanding that the trumpet holds a special place in the psyche of society, the Twin Cities Trumpet Ensemble seeks to enliven, entertain, and enrich the community through the highest level of professional performance prowess and the presentation of music of
quality and stylistic and temperamental diversity. It exemplifies the transformative power of music through the performance of music written or arranged for three or more trumpets. The ensemble has performed numerous concerts in the tri-state area, including performances at Lake Como Pavilion and several churches.

Sheldon Theatre Brass Band–The Sheldon Theatre Brass Band was founded in 1989 as the resident performing ensemble at the newly restored turn-of- the-century T. B. Sheldon Theatre in Red Wing. The band is made up of cornets, trombones, tenor horns, euphoniums, tubas and percussion. In addition to its regular performances at the Sheldon Theatre, the band performs at a variety of venues throughout Minnesota and western Wisconsin, and it has performed at many brass band festivals throughout the United States including NABBA Great American Brass Band Festival.

Bavarian Musikmeisters–Members of the Bavarian Musikmeisters hail from the Twin Cities and model themselves after traditional German village bands, lederhosen and all. The band’s 35 musicians perform authentic musical arrangements on a variety of brass and woodwind instruments: flute, clarinet, trumpet, flugelhorn, tenor horn, baritone, trombone, tuba and percussion. They perform for numerous events in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area and have performed at Germanic festivals in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and South Dakota, as well as at the German-American Mardi Gras Association annual meeting in Las Vegas.

The Whistlin’ Dixies–This Twin Cities-based group prides itself on its versatility. The Whistlin’ Dixies has a core group of four fun and funky musicians and adds up to ten others to play a variety of genres, ranging from Motown classics to vintage jazz and swing to rock n’ roll. The band often performs for weddings, parties and corporate events.

New Prague Community Band–The New Prague Area Community Band consists of community members ranging from teenagers to retirees. It plays a diverse selection of band repertoire, striving to entertain all sorts of audiences. Band  members are an energetic group who believe that music is fun; they try to show that in their attitudes and in the songs they play at local events and area celebrations throughout the year.

The venue for the series of outdoor concerts on July 29 will be Bridge Square in Downtown Northfield, Minnesota along the banks of the wild and scenic Cannon River. The show will run from 10am-10pm and feature a variety of Minnesota music ensembles playing 45 or 90 minute sets. Vintage Band Festival will run concurrently with Riverwalk Market Fair, an open-air arts and food market, and will also have a variety of food concessions. Festival goers should bring chairs or blankets and plan to spend the day.

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.