Tuba Christmas: A band geek’s holiday revenge

Tuba players and the people who love them — we have our reasons. And we don’t need to explain them to anyone. But if we must, we can argue that the tuba’s proletarian duty in any ensemble — to simultaneously anchor and propel a piece of music — is essential, yet surpassed by the pure gorgeousness of the instrument’s primal sound. Or, we can just point out, tubas are hella fun.

That was obviously the case on Saturday afternoon at the Lyric Theatre downtown, where all variations of the horn crammed the stage and a few hundred people filled the hall for the sometimes annual seasonal ritual known as TubaChristmas.

I’ve seen TubaChristmases in other cities. The event was started by some important, famous tuba instructor back in 1974 and has now become a world-wide thing. Basically, any tuba player who wants to play can show up; they all practice for a little while and then put on a little concert of holiday standards. A couple of weeks ago the Star reported that this year’s TubaChristmas was in danger for lack of volunteers, but was rescued by Joe Parisi, the associate director of bands at the UMKC Conservatory of Music.