Tubas deliver holiday melody

The concert has been a Mahoning Valley tradition for 11 years.

BY JORDAN COHEN

VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT

NILES — TubaChristmas is perhaps the most unusual assembly of musicians to perform Christmas music — the orchestra consists exclusively of tuba players.

Saturday, 95 tuba musicians played two concerts before standing-room audiences at the Eastwood Mall Community Room.

It marked the 11th annual concert at the mall for TubaChristmas, which always performs the first Saturday after Thanksgiving. The woman who made it possible from the beginning said she has never lost her enthusiasm for the tuba and the people who play it.

“I saw my first TubaChristmas concert in Akron years ago, and I was so impressed I wanted to bring it to Trumbull County,” said Teresa Kirkland, concert coordinator. Kirkland, a former Newton Falls resident now living in Aurora, said nearly 2,000 attended last year’s performances, and the turnout Saturday appeared to equal that figure.

TubaChristmas began life in New York City in 1974 and has grown to more than 200 different Tuba-Christmas orchestras throughout the United States.

Kirkland said she has used such Internet social networks as FaceBook to attract musicians for the Niles concerts. Some of the 95 who performed Saturday came from Maryland, Virginia and Chicago. The majority were high school students from throughout the Mahoning Valley.

Even more surprising is that the TubaChristmas performers practice for only one hour just before playing their concert.

“They’re all capable players,” said Wesley O’Connor, who conducts TubaChristmas in addition to his position as band director at Austintown Fitch High School. “They know the tunes and the music, so there’s no problem with having just a one-hour rehearsal.”

The music is composed of Christmas standards, and audiences are encouraged to sing along.

Ages of the musicians range from 8 to 81. One of the younger performers, Bailey Seletas, 12, said Saturday was her first TubaChristmas. “I heard about it from our music teacher, and it sounded like fun,” said the Mineral Ridge Middle School sixth-grader who wore a Santa hat for the occasion.

One of the more experienced is Brian Kiser, tuba professor at Youngstown State University, who has played in TubaChristmas concerts for 18 years.

“We have camaraderie with all these people from different schools and backgrounds, and it’s great having all these different types of [tubas] playing together,” Kiser said. The instruments include such classifications as euphoniums, baritone horns and sousaphones.

O’Connor made it a point during the concert to explain to the audience that tubas, which are usually relegated to musical background during band concerts, don’t need to be considered secondary to trumpets, clarinets or flutes.

“Tubas can play the melody,” O’Connor said, and the enthusiastic applause in response to his remark indicated the audience agreed.