At Valparaiso University’s 16th annual TubaChristmas, the view from the balcony directly above the tubas offered a fabulous perspective Sunday afternoon.
Nearly at eye level with the appropriately pierced-brass chandeliers, visitors had the best perch for taking in the puffing cheeks of the dozens of musicians below.
Embraced by the sound from the cavernous bells – some shiny, some dull, some silver, most brass – Maxwell Hardt, 6, sat in the first row waiting to hear his big brother play with the band.
Kankakee Valley High School senior Wyatt McCullough, 17, was playing the tuba, which might seem obvious, but the genre can include a variety of cousin instruments from double-bell euphoniums to sousaphones.
“This is his fourth year,” said his mom, April Hardt.
“This would have been his third year, but he was sick last year,” corrected his dad, Marshall Hardt.
“They’re loud. I can hear them from the other side of the house,” said Maxwell, who’s been listening to rehearsals at home for years now.
“He’s pretty proud,” April Hardt added. “He just bought himself his first tuba to take to college. That’s his first young adult purchase.”
McCullough, who also plays the trombone, bass and acoustic guitar, harmonica, and viola, plans to major in music education when he heads to Indiana State University next fall. He was among plenty of peers Sunday afternoon.
Music teacher Julie Plant and her husband, elementary teacher Jonathan Plant, were playing, along with their 10-year-old daughter Genevieve, the youngest musician.
“Ten years ago when Aimee (Tomasek, one of the event’s organizers) made a poster for TubaChristmas, she took a picture of a little baby next to a tuba and that little baby was Genevieve,” conductor Jeff Doebler told the audience, which was full of tuba aficionados geeking out on the many tidbits of trivia Doebler shared between songs about the instruments being played.
Then it was on to song #13 from the playbook, “The Wassail Song.”
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“Love and joy come to you,
And to your wassail, too,
And God bless you, and send
A Happy New Year,
And God send you a Happy New Year.”
The late Richard Watson, a former private instructor in low brass studies at VU, was honored with an original composition, “A Hymn for Richard,” composed by Matthew Hibbets, himself a retired music teacher.
“Tragically, Richard was killed in a motorcycle accident last summer,” said Doebler.
The bass brass played a rendition of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” that Watson often conducted in his career.
“I know our good friend Richard would have been really thrilled that you are all here,” Doebler said.
Shelley Jones is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.