This article appeared in today's Kansas City Star. The paper noted that TubaChristmas on Dec 20 begins at 10 a.m. -- which is correct for THE REHEARSAL -- but the performance is at NOON. I've corrected it below but please note the printed article is not clear on that point. I will try to get a clarification published.
6 days to go!
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Printed Sun Dec 14, 2008
Symphony opens doors to TubaChristmas
By AARON BARNHART
The Kansas City Star
So here’s the idea: Five hundred of your friends and neighbors who at some point in their lives, and for reasons we don’t need to get into, learned to play the tuba, euphonium and/or sousaphone descend on a single location and perform Christmas carols in a choir made up entirely of big brass.
It’s called TubaChristmas: a do-it-yourself musical mob organized by volunteers in more than 200 locales across the land. It has been a staple of Kansas City holiday festivities since 1979, but this year it appeared there would be neither venue nor volunteers.
On Dec. 3, Kansas City Symphony executive director Frank Byrne — himself a veteran hefter of the long trumpet — took a phone call from Harvey Phillips, the renowned professor of music at Indiana University. Phillips had organized the first TubaChristmas in 1974 in honor of his teacher William J. Bell.
And it was Phillips personally putting out the SOT (save our TubaChristmas) to keep the tradition going in Kansas City. Phillips, after all, is a native Missourian who was honored in 1987 by his alma mater, the University of Missouri, for his contributions to music, including TubaChristmas.
Faster than you could say “Bom BOM boppa boppa bom bom” — that’s tuba for “we wish you a merry Christmas” — the event was on again, with a warm welcome to use the Symphony’s home base.
Joe Parisi, associate director of bands at the UMKC Conservatory, will be the conductor. Steven Jarvi, assistant conductor of the Symphony, will guest conduct.
The sound generated by hundreds of conical-bore instruments performing in four parts from special TubaChristmas arrangements — 19 of them composed by Alec Wilder for the original concert — has been variously described as mellow, smooth and low, unique (you hear that a lot), awesome and not unlike standing in the pipe chambers of a large cathedral.
The sight is something else: scores of brightly attired musicians hoisting instruments that they have decked out with portable lights and festive bunting.
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The show
•TubaChristmas Kansas City will happen Saturday at the Lyric, 1029 Central, and is free to the public. The performance is at NOON.
•Performers should show up at 9 a.m. for registration and a 10 a.m. rehearsal. Organizers are expecting so many performers that they’re planning to seat them in the audience (which means no music stands; performers are advised to bring lyres instead).
•Those planning to dust off their tubas and join the crowd Saturday should bring $5 to register and $15 for the official sheet music.