Northfield’s motto is Cows, Colleges and Contentment, but during the Vintage Band Festival 2013 last weekend, Cornets, Community and Contentment felt like a more appropriate description.

My great-grandfather, G. Oliver Riggs, performed as a cornet soloist from the 1890s through the early 1920s, so it’s probably no surprise that I was particularly drawn to performances that featured that lovely, mellow instrument. Here are a few sights and sounds from the festival that involved cornets:

• Elisa Koehler, with Newberry’s Victorian Cornet Band, performs a solo during an Aug. 1 concert in Way Park. I would have recorded more of it, but my camera was running out of juice!

• Mark Ponzo, a professor of trumpet at Northern Illinois University, performs on the cornet Aug.

A funeral was held earlier this week for Louis Dinndorf, the last of G. Oliver Riggs’ former pupils to retire from the St. Cloud Municipal Band.

I never got the chance to meet Louie, unfortunately. He had been living in a St. Cloud nursing home for the past several years and was not well enough for me to interview him. But my dad got to know him when they played together in the St. Cloud Municipal Band. Louie retired from the band in 2006.

I had intended to blog every day during the Vintage Band Festival 2013, but I was was too busy meeting people and attending concerts and presentations. The good news is, I have plenty of material to write about in the following days and weeks.

You can look for a post-festival recap later this week, when I’ve recovered from all the excitement.
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