A sea of tubas brought together for the annual TubaChristmas concert at Larimer Square is a most lovely sight, indeed, says the Lakewood brassman and University of Colorado at Denver music professor. This outdoor performance of Christmas carols on Dec. 11 from 1-2 p.m. is the one time when hundreds of men and women usually stuck in the back row of the band step out of the shadows and take up the melody line. The first TubaChristmas concert was in New York in 1974, a tribute to much loved tuba teacher born on Christmas Day. Today, all-tuba holiday concerts are performed in 120 cities in the U.S. and Switzerland. Clark, who also leads the Queen City Jazz Band, keeps the enormous band together in Denver. He says anyone with a tuba or euphonium – and enough brass to play out in the cold for a couple of hours – is welcome to join. – Judith Howard
How many tuba and euphonium players do you expect at your Dec. 11 concert? Well, we’ve been getting about 400 people from all across the state and neighboring states.
Do you practice? Yes. We do all this in one day. We start at the Auraria campus. We rehearse at CU-Denver from 10 a.m. until noon, and then walk over to Larimer Square.
How does it feel for tuba and euphonium players to be at the center of attention? In music, you have supporting parts that are equally important and this is what we always do. This is our chance, one time a year, to play the melody.
The violins must get jealous. We won’t let them play; they have to listen.
Anything unusual expected at this year’s concert? One of the neatest things in Denver is an Army band that is a nostalgia band, the 4th U.S. Artillery Regimental Brass Band, and they play old marches, a la the Civil War and World War I. They show up with old instruments, predecessors to the instruments we have now. The tuba isn’t that old, only about 150 years old, and these people have some of the earliest ones.
Is it tough being a tuba player? We get teased a lot. I met a tuba player who is 11 years old, and already a number of people have come up to him, saying, “don’t you wish you played the piccolo?” That’s the question people always ask us because they see us carrying this big thing along. We don’t care, we’re strong.
Word is that a TubaChristmas is an over-the-top concert not to be missed by musicians or listeners. True or false? True. If you play a tuba and you’re not part of this concert, you’re a loser. People who play tubas should all be in this. It’s a wonderful social event, where tuba players get together and chat, and especially at rehearsal. A lot of people call me and say, “You have to send me the music, I don’t think I can do this.” But I tell them to come and play whatever songs they can and do whatever they can do and have fun.
What Christmas song sounds best when played by a tuba? “O Come, All Ye Faithful.” We start the concert with that everytime.
Who: Bill Clark, TubaChristmas conductor
Want to get your tuba groove on?
There are three TubaChristmas concerts in Colorado this year:
Colorado Springs
4 p.m., Saturday
Acacia Park Band Shell
115 E. Platte Ave.
Grand Junction
Noon, Dec. 10
Chrome Buffalo
Corner of 4th and Main
Denver
1 p.m., Dec. 11
Larimer Square
Larimer Street between 14th and 15th streets
Musician information:
tubachristmas.com
