Tuba, or not tuba? For the more than 80 low brass instrumentalists and the hundreds gathered at Valparaiso University’s Chapel of the Resurrection Sunday afternoon for the 14th annual TubaChristmas, the answer was definitely tuba.
“I’ve been here three times,” said Crown Point resident Stan Peters from the front row. “It’s an entertaining concert.” He’d brought his friend Sharon Webb, of St. John.
“I like anything musical. I don’t care what it is,” she said. “I’ll probably cry. Christmas music always makes me cry.”
TubaChristmas conductor and VU Director of Music Education and Bands Jeff Doebler told the full chapel that there were over 250 TubaChristmas performances being held around the world, in this its 50th anniversary year. William Bell, principal tuba with the band of John Philip Sousa, started the tradition.
The program pulls about 13 songs every year from a catalog of 33. They’re mostly well-known classics with a few that might be more familiar in other parts of the world, such as “Lo, How A Rose is Growing.” “We’ve played some more than others, and we sing some every year,” Doebler said as part of the commentary he ran every few songs.
Sunday’s performance began with “Adeste Fideles.” The songs were played twice, once as an instrumental offering, and twice so the crowd could sing along. The performance moved on to such classics as “Go Tell it on the Mountain,” “Jingle Bells” and “Silent Night.”
The musicians were garbed in ugly Christmas sweaters, Santa hats, and hats and scarves knitted with the words TubaChristmas, while many of the big brass bells were wreathed in lights and tinsel. Doebler told the crowd the youngest player was 11-year-old George, “and, as usual, no one has offered to be our oldest member.”
By the time the band got to “O Holy Night,” Webb was dabbing at her nose. “My nose is running,” she said to Peters. “I don’t know why I get so choked up at Christmas music.”
But it wasn’t all swelling poignancy. The whimsy of a performance executed by one family of instruments was perfectly illustrated by instrumentalist Aimee Tomasek dressed as a Christmas tree, while the bell of her helicon read “Kiss Low Brass.”
Rensselaer Middle School sixth grader Owen Butler was certainly intrigued by the sound. “I think it was very interesting and amazing to have all the low brass instruments able to play melody,” he said after the show. “We’re hoping next year to have a performer,” his mom Brenda Butler said.
Students a little closer to VU are already performing. Kouts Middle School student Nate Rackouski and Kouts High School student Adam Lundquist were playing the euphonium and tuba, respectively. “This is my first year that I had students in it, but I always pushed it,” said their band teacher Caitlyn Coller. “I’m a VU grad, so I always pushed it.”
“I got to play with a bunch of other low brass, rather than a whole band,” Nate, an eighth grader, said of the best part of the experience.
“People just like you,” Coller added.
Kouts Middle School English teacher Eric Smith comes to the show with his wife and kids every year. This year he knew he’d be seeing his two former students playing, in addition to his friend Debbie Nagel, who’s been playing TubaChristmas for the past 16 years — the first two in Chicago, and the rest at VU.
“I love it,” said the Portage resident and Central Elementary School music teacher. “I started going with my dad back in high school and he passed away and I said, ‘I’m still doing this.’ I normally play a flute. I just break this out for this,” she added, holding up the darling of the TubaChristmas, the double-bell euphonium.
Shelley Jones is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
