Two tubas, a horn, three suitcases and three University of Southern Mississippi music professors pour out of a Volkswagen Jetta at a West Virginian hotel. Like a clown car at a circus, the professors laugh and joke, retiring to their rooms before their drive to Athens.
When they step on stage, it's all business for Associate Professor Richard Perry and his trio on their way into town to usher in Ohio University's Octubafest tomorrow.
You have to take yourself seriously
said tuba player Perry, via phone as he unloaded his packed car at the hotel. But it helps that we all like each other. At least we didn't have to bring a piano.
Perry has known the other two Southern Miss faculty members in his trio - pianist Lois Leventhal and horn player Heidi Lucas - for eight years and three years, respectively, but this fall marks the first time they have performed together as a group.
It's fitting, then, that their Athens introduction comes during Octubafest, a three-night celebration of the tuba created by Indiana University professor Harvey Phillips in the 1970s. The festival will continue Sunday with a performance by the OU Tuba-Euphonium Ensemble and conclude Oct. 20 with an OU faculty recital.
For the 20 OU students who study tuba or the euphonium, a smaller cousin of the tuba, as well as the instruments' countless fans, Octubafest serves as homage to an instrument still paving its way through musical history.
The tuba wasn't invented until 1835. Every other instrument they don't even know when it was invented said Jason Smith, OU ensemble director and featured tuba player in the faculty recital. Whereas Mozart
Beethoven
Handel and Haydn wrote great music for those instruments
it wasn't until 1954 that a major composer wrote a piece for the tuba.
The student and faculty ensembles' repertoires mix original compositions and tuba arrangements. Concertgoers will also hear adapted classics like Gioachino Rossini's William Tell Overture
a piece the faculty quartet was still fine-tuning at rehearsal Sunday night.
I was struggling through (measure) 91
euphonium player Molly McConnell Wildman told the group.
Well
when are we playing this? Two weeks? asked Simon Wildman, another euphonium player. Oh
we've got time.
For Perry's trio, too, practice makes perfect, especially when attempting to dispel common rumors about the tuba as strictly a football game halftime show staple.
We have to play the best music that we can find
we have to play music that's written for us and we have to play it at the highest level we possibly can
