1999 International Tuba-Euphonium Workshop

[Steve Marcus]

The 1999 International Tuba-Euphonium Workshop took place at University of Oklahoma. Faculty members Brian Bowman, Ted Cox, Sam Pilafian, and Deanna Swoboda led a very worthwhile and fulfilling experience.

We were given a list of participants, but I have lost mine.

It would be very interesting to see how the participants are doing 15 years later. There were some very talented musicians there, and a significant number of them have gone on to tuba/euphonium related careers.

Please chime in if you attended this Workshop. If you have a memory from it that you'd like to share, excellent. You can mention what you're doing professionally now; some of the participants are fairly well recognized in today's tuba/euphonium community. If tuba/euphonium is an avocation rather than a career for you, you can mention what role the instrument plays in your life now.

Thanks!

[Ted Cox]

Has it really been 15 years?! We held that event for six years, beginning in 1998 and ending in 2003. A lot of fine talent and wonderful people attended over those six years. Sam had been out to Oklahoma to play a concert in the summer of 97. Before he flew out, he said that he wanted to talk to me about a project. I assumed it was a writing project as he had asked me to transcribe Arnold Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht for double brass quintet several years earlier. (That transcription is available for rental from Belmont music. It isn't easy!) He asked me if I wanted to teach a week long summer workshop with him. We were sitting in the airport waiting for his plane to depart and he sketched out the schedule on the back of an envelope. From there, I had to figure out how to manifest the envelope into an actual event that people would come to. I went to my administration and got things moving enough to talk to Sam again to see who he wanted to teach euphonium with us. He asked me who I wanted and without hesitation said, "Brian Bowman." He agreed and asked me to call him.

The four of us worked extremely well together. We offered a full schedule that included nearly everything you could think of. The days flew by as did the week. The first year we did two weeks, which had the option of attending one or both weeks. That nearly killed us! The euphonium players had a lot of contact with Brian, beginning at 8 a.m. with their own warm-up session. They also formed their own ensemble with Brian conducting. Sam and I have known each other for nearly 30 years and he is an artist without equal. If you want to know one important aspect about people like Sam, they are curious about everything. Deanna offered her positive spark and total commitment to every student. I tried to keep the whole thing running without any disasters. Everything comes to an end at some point and I'm surprised we made that last six years. I'm grateful for having the opportunity and equally grateful for all the wonderful people I met during that time.
Ted

[Tom]

I attended twice, in (I think) 2000 and 2001. It might have been 2001 and 2002.

I still remember the T-shirts (maybe that will help nail down the year): My first year was the "breathe" shirt and the next year was a purple shirt. The purple one lives on as my remodeling & painting shirt.

It was a great experience for me and was both a thrill and an eye opener to work with Sam Pilafian, Brian Bowman, Deanna Swoboda, and Ted Cox.

[deholder]

I wasn't going to post here, because honestly I do not know this story of how it came to be at UNT. but I was looking for an old set of images that I took a long long time ago and I found this little nugget. It was my first . . and last time attending it. I was a lowly graduate student working on his doctorate. I had a baritone, and it was embarrasing. Seriously, I put it on eBay and have never played baritone or euph since. No they were not mean, actually they were graceful and nice about it. but I should not have been their. Heck I cannot even work up the nerve to play at Tuba Christmas. Anyway, here you go. How did the Euph day come to be at UNT?

[Jack Denniston]

I had the great good fortune to participate in one of these workshops- I'm not sure which year, but the 4 faculty were Bowman, Cox, Svoboda and Pilafian- what a dream team! Highlights that I can remember include being in the beautiful music school facility, morning warm-ups that included buzzing the Flintstones in the key of the day, meals and conversation with the faculty at the cafeteria, group lessons and groove sessions with Deanna and her rhythm toys, ear training with Sam, yoga classes with Mrs. Cox, faculty recitals, scales with Brian, re-learning how to play the tuba, and much much more. Tuba playing is my hobby, and my subsequent performances with brass quintets, tuba quartet, brass choir, brass band, orchestras, wind ensembles and dixieland bands have been greatly enriched by what I learned through my participation in this workshop.