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#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!

Vintage Band Festival is Back!

Have you heard the news??

Vintage Band Festival 2021 will take place July 31, 2021. Exactly 425 days will have elapsed since VBF’s last public event: the Swing into Leap Year Dance on February 29, 2020. It’s been a long time coming. With the lifting of restrictions by the Governor’s office a couple of weeks ago, it looks like our outdoor event in Bridge Square can be held safely.

We’re going to have a great lineup for 12 hours of brass band enjoyment. The evening schedule is set. At 5:30 on the Wenger Showmobile Stage we’ll have Southside Aces, a fantastic Twin Cities jazz ensemble led by Tony Baluff on clarinet. Copper Street Brass will take the stage at 6:45 and the evening will finish with the sounds of the Roseville Big Band. Copper Street Brass has appeared at every Vintage Band Festival since 2006, but the Roseville Big Band will be making its debut with us. Bring your dancing shoes!

We’ll announce the rest of the lineup just as soon as we get confirmations from everyone. Check back often at the VBF website for  the rest of the day’s schedule and other festival details.

Riverwalk Market Fair, an open-air bazaar featuring fresh produce vendors and artisans of all sorts, will again be sharing Bridge Square with Vintage Band Festival. This collaboration has been taking place for a number of years now and we love the synergy that results from the co-mingling of our audiences!

Thanks to our spring donors who stepped up during Spring Forward MN in May. We have a goal to raise $5,000 before the July festival and we’re 30% there following the May fund drive. If you can help us with a gift in any amount, please visit www.vintagebandfestival.org and click on the green “Donate” button.

This past year has been difficult for everyone and we’re looking forward to seeing all of you again in person. If you haven’t gotten a COVID-19 vaccination yet, please do so at your earliest opportunity. The best way to reduce the risk of virus transmission for everyone is for people to be fully vaccinated.

Vintage and Modern at Vintage Band Festival 2017

Vintage Band Festival 2017 will celebrate musical traditions spanning more than a century on July 29 in Downtown Northfield, MN. At the beginning of the day, we will be showcasing the Fifes and Drums of Historic Fort Snelling. At the end of the day we will be welcoming McNasty Brass Band to the stage. Both of these ensembles are performing for the first time at Vintage Band Festival.

Fifes and Drums of Historic Fort Snelling  11:00-11:45am

The Historic Fort Snelling Fifes and Drums is a volunteer musical ensemble dedicated to representing the fort’s long history through music. The corps performs concerts and field shows in the fort on selected Saturdays from late May through mid-August. The corps also performs in concerts and parades in the Twin Cities area. Our goal is to gain a national reputation by performing throughout Minnesota and participating in fife-and-drum musters and clinics across the country.

Founded in 1971 when the historic site opened, the Historic Fort Snelling Fifes and Drums took a hiatus after only a few years. Music duties at the fort were handled by the interpretive staff, but their performance opportunities were limited. The full corps was revived in 2014 using staff musicians and student volunteers. The musical repertoire now spans from the Revolutionary War through World War II, the years when Fort Snelling was an active post of the United States Army.

McNasty Brass Band  8:30-10:00pm

McNasty 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.

Each player works tirelessly outside McNasty Brass Band as a side-man, some with national and international touring acts. That’s what makes McNasty special– these youthful but experienced side-men come together and showcase their compositions, solos, group vocals, and stage presence as front-men. “McNasty Brass Band is a perfect example of why you shouldn’t make fun of the kid who is super into trumpet in 5th grade” (twincitiesmedia.net). “King Size Life,” their first studio album (available January 27, 2017), encapsulates their live energy with exciting compositions, rowdy gang vocals, and rip-roaring solos. The only thing missing is their dance moves!

We welcome you to Northfield for the entire 12 hours of the concert schedule. Riverwalk Market Fair will share Bridge Square with us from 9am-1pm. For the complete schedule and information about all of the bands, go to the VBF website.

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.