Tubas and Their Kin Hold Keys to Noteworthy Holiday Event

As any psychiatrist can tell you, this is a treacherous time of year. People forget that dysfunctional family is redundant and begin drinking heavily at the prospect of the inevitable in-gathering of relatives. That, or they sink into depression because key family members are no longer around to be dreaded. And don't ask about the mall. This month the population density of the average American shopping center could induce claustrophobia in an astronaut.

So how to get into the spirit of the holidays if you'd rather have your tongue pierced than go see "The Grinch"? There's always Tuba Christmas on Saturday in Glendale.

Jim Self is the local organizer of this annual celebration of the Yuletide potential of the tuba and its unwieldy cousins, the sousaphone, euphonium, baritone horn and helicon. The Glendale version of Tuba Christmas, held in more than 150 cities across the country, will feature more than 200 tuba players of varying degrees of expertise.

"This is our 25th year in Los Angeles," says Self, of the free concert featuring hymns and carols specially arranged for the James Earl Jones of instruments. "It's a national tradition that's been going on for 27 years. It was organized by my former teacher Harvey Phillips, who was kind of the guru of tuba players."

Phillips had no idea Tuba Christmas would catch on nationwide when he held the first concert in 1973 in New York City's Rockefeller Center. Phillips conceived it to honor his own tuba teacher and friend, the late William Bell, who had played tuba in Arturo Toscanini's NBC Orchestra. It was no accident that the event was a Christmas concert: Bell was born on Christmas Day, 1903.

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In the spirit of that first Tuba Christmas, participants play holiday music arranged specifically for tuba by composer Alec Wilder, who died on Christmas Day in 1980. Wilder's arrangements, which exploit the deep, resonant tones that the tuba can make, go a long way toward overcoming its popular reputation as an almost comic instrument usually relegated to the orchestra's periphery.

Again and again, observers compare the best music of Tuba Christmas to the sound of a gifted men's choir. Most of the time, Self says, people tend to dismiss the brass instrument's sound as nothing but oom-pah. But in capable hands it's a remarkably versatile instrument. And when first-rate players perform the right repertoire, he says, "It's a glorious sound, really."