Like other tuba players, Arlona Schulz enjoys playing her instrument but sometimes bemoans the fact that she never gets to play the melody or a solo.
But here comes Antioch Tuba Christmas — which Schulz created in 2006 with her former tuba teacher Bob Beutel.
Imagine some 75 tuba and euphonium players planted behind their huge shiny instruments playing Christmas melodies and harmonies all together.
That’s Tuba Christmas, and this year’s free event will be held Dec. 20 at Faith Lutheran Church in Antioch in honor of Beutel and Charles Yeager who both played with the group and are recently deceased.
“From the audience’s perspective, Tuba Christmas is cool because of the sound,” said Schulz, who played tuba in grade and high school in Antioch where she lives.
“It’s the same thrill you get listening to an organ — that mellow, deep rich sound,” she said “Every other instrument gets the chance to shine in a normal band environment and the tuba is not often featured. It is so much fun to hear a tuba play a melody because it’s so unexpected.”
Typically about 200 show up to hear the concert, directed by Paul Hefner, a trombone player and conductor of the Round Lake Community Band.
Tuba and euphonium players who want to participate can bring their instrument, music stand, a towel and registration fee of $10 for a rehearsal beginning at 2:30 p.m. the day of the concert at Antioch Township Building, 1625 N. Deep Lake Road, Lake Villa.
Middle school students get some extra help learning their music when Schulz arranges a clinic just for them each year at the Antioch Township building about a week before the concert.
“It’s designed for middle school students to become familiar with the Tuba Christmas music and traditions. One of my favorite things about Tuba Christmas is that we get fourth-graders all the way up to people in their 80s,” she said. It gives young students the chance to see that they can play their instruments throughout their lives,” said Schulz, who also plays with the Lakes Area Community Band.
Schulz and Buetel used to go to Chicago to hear A Tuba Christmas every year. It was created in 1974 by Harvey Phillips as a tribute to his teacher and mentor William J. Bell, born on Christmas Day in 1902, she said. The first Tuba Christmas was presented Dec. 22,1974, in New York City’s Rockefeller Plaza Ice Rink. Since then, many other cities, including Chicago, began featuring similar concerts.
“It was so much fun, we wanted to bring it to Antioch,” Schulz said.
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The tuba and euphonium players will perform favorite seasonal songs including “Deck the Halls,” “Jingle Bells,” “Silent Night” and “Go Tell it on the Mountain,” she said.
On concert day, the instrumentalists rehearse and then enjoy a dinner Schulz prepares for them before they perform.
“Tuba players are used to being the foundation and adjusting in pitch — so they are very good about that in the rehearsal,” she said. “The hard thing is getting them to follow. The tuba player is so used to being in control of the rhythm. If I am playing in a band and I don’t like the tempo, I can change it.”
But dozens of tuba players can’t all be in charge of the tempo, and luckily, she said, the conductor gets them all in line before the concert.
“He’s very good at it,” she said.
Sheryl DeVore is a freelance writer.
A Tuba Christmas
7 p.m., Dec. 20
Faith Lutheran Church, 24300 W. Grass Lake Road, Antioch
Tickets: Free to spectators; $10 participation fee
Information: tubachristmas.com/readtcloc.php?TCState=IL&TCCity=Antioch or email [email protected]