A Historical Overview of the Development of Collegiate and Professional Tuba Euphonium Ensembles in the United States Christopher Lair

Home , Euphonium, Harvey Phillips, Mass (Bernstein), Rich Matteson

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2010 A Historical Overview of the Development of Collegiate and Professional Tuba Euphonium Ensembles in the United States Christopher Lair

Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF MUSIC

A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF

COLLEGIATE AND PROFESSIONAL TUBA œ EUPHONIUM ENSEMBLES IN

THE UNITED STATES

CHRISTOPHER LAIR

A Treatise submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Music

Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2010

The members of the committee approve the treatise of Christopher Lair defended on October 29, 2009.

______John Drew Professor Co-Directing Treatise

______Paul Ebbers Professor Co-Directing Treatise

______Charles Brewer University Representative

______Eric Ohlsson Committee Member

The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

During the preparation of this document, I received assistance from a variety of generous individuals and organizations. I am deeply indebted to all of them. I would like to offer my thanks to professors R. Winston Morris, Scott Watson, Jerry Young, Harvey Phillips, John Stevens, Joe Skillen, Demondrae Thurman, and Skip Gray, who generously donated their time and expertise for interviews. Special thanks to R. Winston Morris for providing decades of recital and concert programs, and for a wealth of invaluable information in a variety of forms. I would like to offer my gratitude to The Florida State University and to my doctoral committee, Dr. John Drew, Dr. Eric Ohlsson, and Dr. Charles Brewer for their time and guidance through the degree process. I would especially like to thank Professor Paul Ebbers for his unwavering assistance and mentorship. This document would not have been possible without the love, support, and generous sacrifices of my family. Special thanks to my parents Dr. Wiliferd and Charlotte Lair, my parents-in-law Don and Linda Marshall, my brother Dale, my sister Rebecca, and my aunt Dr. Wanda Pipkin, for their support and encouragement. I could never offer enough thanks to my wife Sharla, whose patience and understanding seem to be without end.

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ...... iii Table of Contents ...... iv List of Figures ...... v

1. INTRODUCTION...... 1

Purpose...... …...1 Definitions………………………………………………..…………...... 2 Interview Questions……………………...……..….……………………...... 2 Review of Literature…………………...……..….…………………………………3

2. THE EARLY YEARS...... 6

3. NEW ENSEMBLES, STANDARDS, AND TRADITIONS...... 22

4. GROWTH AND EXPANSION...... 36

5. APPENDICES...... 47

A. R. Winston Morris...... 47 B. Scott Watson ...... 72 C. Harvey Phillips...... 80 D. Dr. Jerry Young...... 83 E. Dr. John Stevens...... 87 F. Dr. Joseph Skillen ...... 91 G. Demondrae Thurman...... 99 H. Dr. Skip Gray ...... 104

6. REFERENCES...... 114

7. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH...... 116

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: The Hoffnung Interplanetary Music Festival, 1958 ...... 9

Figure 2: Roger Bobo, Tuba œ Carnegie Recital Hall, 1961...... 10

Figure 3: Tennessee Technological University Tuba and Trombone Ensembles, 1968... 14

Figure 4: Tennessee Technological University Tuba Ensemble: Carnegie Recital Hall, 1976 ...... 24

Figure 5: Tennessee Technological University Tuba Ensemble: Pierre Garbáge, 1976...... 27

Figure 6: Tuba Christmas, circa 1973 ...... 31

Figure 7: Tennessee Technological University Tuba Ensemble: Tour Program, 1982 ...... 42

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

Purpose The purpose of this document is to provide a historical overview of the development of tuba-euphonium ensembles in the United States. It is a compilation of both written and oral history. It includes interviews with collegiate and professional tubists and euphoniumists about the history of tuba-euphonium ensembles in the United States. It also includes reflection and perspective on the pedagogical impact of the tuba- euphonium ensemble, and the relative value of these ensembles in university tuba- euphonium studios. It is the author‘s belief that it is essential to document this history at this time. Without it, much of the information contained in this work will eventually be lost. Although it did not exist until the latter half of the twentieth century, the American tuba-euphonium ensemble has developed a rich tradition. First formed at the University of Indiana, the tuba-euphonium ensemble quickly found a place in numerous high schools and universities. Since its inception in the sixties, tuba-euphonium ensembles have appeared in the United States in genres from classical to popular, and are established at every level from beginning to professional. They have also become an integral part of community events and holidays. Commercial recordings of tuba- euphonium ensembles are available through Mark Records, Golden Crest, and others. This project details the establishment of instrumentation, repertoire, and important historical figures in the development of the American tuba-euphonium ensemble.

Definitions The term —tuba-euphonium ensemble“ refers to a specific type of ensemble comprised of multiple tuba and euphonium players, usually in four or more parts. The tuba-euphonium ensemble can be one to a part in a chamber music approach, as followed by Constance Weldon‘s ensemble at The University of Miami or multiple players to a part, as utilized by Winston Morris at The Tennessee Technological University.

The term —tuba-euphonium quartet“ refers to a chamber ensemble consisting of four players. The most common instrumentation includes two euphoniums (sometimes referred to as tenor tuba) and two tubas. The two tubas are usually a bass tuba (pitched in E-flat or F), and a contrabass tuba (pitched in BB-flat or CC).

Interview Questions The following questions were asked of Professors R. Winston Morris, Scott Watson, Harvey Phillips, Jerry Young, John Stevens, Joseph Skillen, Demondrae Thurman, and Skip Gray. These questions were asked in order to obtain an oral history of tuba-euphonium ensembles in the United States. Some of these questions were also designed to gain perspective on the relevance and necessity of tuba-euphonium ensembles in the university tuba curriculum. 1. Can you describe the history and climate related to tuba ensembles in the 1960s? 2. Can you describe the history and climate related to tuba ensembles in the 1970s? 3. Can you describe the history and climate related to tuba ensembles in the 1980s? 4. Can you describe the history and climate related to tuba ensembles in the 1990s? 5. Why did you form the Tuba-Euphonium Ensemble with your studio? 6. What has been your overriding philosophy for the group? 7. Did you have any special influences? 8. Do you feel tuba ensembles are important in the university curriculum? Why? 9. Can you describe the reception the group has received by the public over the years? 10. Do you feel professional tuba-euphonium ensembles are important to the development and continuity of the instrument? Why? 11. What have you witnessed in the evolution of tuba-euphonium quartets over the decades? 12. Do you think tuba-euphonium quartets will have a place as a traditional chamber ensemble?

Review of Literature Extant literature related to collegiate and professional tuba-euphonium ensembles of the United States is limited. Before this document, there existed only a few relatively short journal articles on the subject. These are found in the T.U.B.A. Journal and are discussed below. There are currently no books on the history of the tuba-euphonium ensemble. In addition, searches on dissertations and other academic papers yielded only three relevant titles. All relevant journal articles are only a few pages or less, and are either a very brief outline of the history of tuba-euphonium ensembles in the United States, or are only indirectly related and therefore not included in this project. Articles directly related to the history of tuba-euphonium ensembles in the United States are titled —Connie‘s Final Toot!“ by David Brubeck and John Olah, and —The Evolution of the Tuba-Euphonium Ensemble“ by R. Winston Morris. Both are from the T.U.B.A. Journal. The article by R. Winston Morris was published in 1988, nearly 30 years after tuba-euphonium ensembles began to appear in the United States. It is focused mainly on the beginnings of the tuba-euphonium ensemble, and includes a brief outline of its international history.1 Though it is well-written and informative, it includes very little detail about events in the United States after the early years. Skip Gray‘s article is similar to Winston Morris‘ article, but is relatively short. The article entitled —Connie‘s Final Toot!“ is an interview with Constance (Connie) Weldon2. She is credited with forming the first formal tuba-euphonium ensemble at a university in the United States, as well as commissioning much of the early literature. This article is historically valuable, but is focused entirely on Connie Weldon, and covers very little of the history of tuba-euphonium ensembles in the U.S. It describes the history of Connie Weldon‘s studio and career rather than the history of her tuba- euphonium ensemble, and contains no significant information concerning national history or events related to tuba-euphonium ensembles.

1 Morris, R. Winston. —The Evolution of the Tuba/Euphonium Ensemble.“ The Instrumentalist. 43 (December 1988): 15-17.

2 Brubeck, David, and Olah, John. —Connie‘s Final Toot!“ TUBA Journal, Summer 1991: 28-37

There are five journal articles indirectly related to the topic. Two of these are about Octubafest and Tuba Christmas, two are pedagogical articles, and one is about the history of the Tubists Universal Brotherhood Association. The pedagogical articles yield information related to tuba-euphonium ensembles in the United States, but are not historical. The articles on Octubafest and Tuba Christmas are both by David Lewis, and are comprised of interviews with Harvey Phillips3. These articles offer some information related to tuba-euphonium ensemble history, but are relatively short. Similarly, the article about Tubists Universal Brotherhood Association is historical, brief, and only indirectly related to the topic of this paper. There are three related dissertations. They include The Tuba Ensemble: its Organization and Literature4, by Gregory Lonman in 1974, The Tuba Ensemble5 by Gilbert Keathley in 1982, and Tennessee Tech Tuba Ensemble by Richard Perry in 1996. Although they are relevant, they are not about the history of collegiate and professional tuba-euphonium ensembles in the United States. The dissertation by Gregory Lonman contains a brief historical overview, and is a paper on the organization and literature of the tuba-euphonium ensemble. This paper is an instructional handbook rather than a historical document. It contains information intended to aid in the organization of collegiate tuba-euphonium ensembles. This document was written during a period when many universities were forming their very first such ensemble. This document explains the value of collegiate tuba-euphonium ensembles, offers objectives, rehearsal techniques, and contains a discography at the end. The dissertation by Gilbert Keathley is a text on composing for tuba-euphonium ensembles. It outlines the problems of composing for the group, as well as offers solutions to many of these inherent problems. It is intended to be used by composers and arrangers as a reference manual for this genre. This paper also contains a history of the tuba family.

3 Lewis, David. —The Story Behind Octubafest and Tuba Christmas“. The Instrumentalist, (December 1988): 36-37, and 38.

4 Lonman, Gregory C. The Tuba Ensemble: its Organization and Literature. Coral Gable, Florida: The University of Miami, 1974 5 Keathley, Gilbert. The Tuba Ensemble. University of Rochester, Eastman School of Music, 1982

The dissertation written by Richard Perry is concerned only with the tuba- euphonium ensemble of the Tennessee Technological University. It briefly outlines the history of the ensemble, and discusses its contributions to the literature. This document offers insight into the most influential collegiate tuba-euphonium ensemble to date. There are no existing books on the history of the tuba-euphonium ensemble. The result of this literary review clearly shows a deficit in extant literature on the history of the collegiate and professional tuba-euphonium ensemble in the United States. There is clearly a need for a more comprehensive historical document. Filling this need is the purpose of this treatise.

CHAPTER 2 THE EARLY YEARS

In the latter half of the twentieth century, artists of the tuba and euphonium have enjoyed tremendous growth in terms of literature and performance opportunities. Previously, substantial literature for the tuba as a solo instrument was virtually nonexistent. There were very few opportunities for tubists to achieve full-time, professional employment in the United States. There were no full-time university teaching positions, and extremely few tubists performed any solo literature. At best, the public accepted a stereotypical view of the instrument as only appropriate for rhythm or to provide the root in a harmonic progression; certainly not a melodic line. At worst, the instrument and its players were considered a humorous novelty, such as the comedic ensemble presented at the Hoffnung Festival in 1956. The tuba became an important voice in the modern orchestra, was accepted as a legitimate solo instrument, and became a member of the brass quintet. The history of the tuba-euphonium ensemble is intertwined with the acceptance of the tuba into modern culture as a serious artistic medium. As the instrument and its players grew in popularity and explored new artistic avenues, the tuba-euphonium ensemble played an important role.

Major Events When George Kleinsinger and Paul Tripp composed a song entitled Tubby the Tuba6 in 1945, the public was first presented with the idea that tubists were capable of playing real melodies. This popular song became an animated short in 1947. The storyline of the work was built around the idea of the tubist playing a melodic line. Tubby, who is the main character of the story, is a tuba looking for his own melody. He meets a friendly bullfrog who helps Tubby eventually find his tune. This work was eventually published in several countries, and its popularity has lasted for many decades. It has reached many people with a message that the tuba is a viable melodic instrument.

6 Goldstein, Edward R., and Morris, R. Winston. The Tuba Source Book, Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1996.

Through the tremendous efforts of great musicians such as William Bell, the public view of the tuba began to change during the 1950‘s. By the 1960‘s, Rex Connor was hired at the University of Kentucky as the first full-time tuba instructor at a university in the United States. The tuba was beginning to be accepted as the traditional bass instrument of brass quintets, rather than the previously accepted bass trombone. At about the same time, university music departments wanted to create faculty brass quintets. This was the primary reason colleges and universities began to hire full-time tuba and euphonium professors. With the advent of full-time university teaching positions for tubists in the United States, there was an explosion of solo literature and performance, student interest, and chamber music. These new university instructors gave way to the birth of the collegiate tuba- euphonium ensemble in the United States. With a need for opportunities for students to play melodic lines and inner harmonies, as well as more opportunities for performance, the popularity of the tuba-euphonium ensemble spread quickly. These ensembles have evolved into a unique, serious, and viable performance medium with a large and diverse array of original repertoire. By the twenty-first century, tuba-euphonium ensembles have performed in major venues across the United States and the world, including Carnegie Hall, Times Square, and the White House. By the end of the twentieth century, there was a wealth of high quality original compositions and transcriptions for tuba from virtually every genre. Several professional tuba-euphonium ensembles have developed as well. The first examples of modern tuba-euphonium ensembles appeared in Europe in the mid-twentieth century. During the period immediately following World War II, tuba and euphonium sections of the brass bands of Great Britain began to form impromptu chamber ensembles. These ensembles planted the seeds of a new ensemble genre that would eventually achieve worldwide recognition as a legitimate venue for musical performance, and help to overcome the common stereotype of the tuba as exclusively a background instrument. At the time these ensembles were formed, appropriate literature was virtually nonexistent. The instrumentation of these groups consisted of the available sections of brass bands, usually two E-flat tubas and two BB-flat tubas, although this was neither consistent nor firmly established. With the growing popularity of these groups, composers began to write and arrange music for them. Some of the better-known early

works for tuba ensemble are Introduction and Rondino by Kenneth Cook in 1951, and Friendly Giants and Quartet for Tubas by composer Eric Ball in 1961.7 In 1958, Gerard Hoffnung organized the Hoffnung Music Festival Concert. Hoffnung was a British humorist and cartoonist of the era, as well as an amateur tubist. Included in this concert was one of the first documented public performances of the modern tuba-euphonium ensemble. However, this was not a serious musical venture. These concerts were intended to be humorous, amusing, and they served to illustrate the comedic, rather unsophisticated stereotype of the tuba in the early twentieth century. According to tubist and pedagogue Winston Morris, Hoffnung said he organized the concerts in order to —purge concert-going of its habitual solemnity“.8 The audience responded to the idea of an organized ensemble of tuba and euphonium players in exactly the way Hoffung intended. This performance was intended to be humorous, and the performers intentionally pandered to and encouraged the laughter of the audience. The performance was met with chuckles, and at times robust laughter. The audience included over 3,000 people. In addition to being the first documented performance of a tuba-euphonium ensemble, this performance is also the earliest known recording of the tuba-euphonium ensemble (Figure 1). In 1961, Roger Bobo performed the first solo tuba recital in the famous Carnegie Recital Hall (Figure 2). This event was especially significant in presenting the tuba to the public in a serious artistic light. This recital helped pave the way for more serious solo tuba performances as well as tuba-euphonium ensemble performances. The earliest known collegiate tuba-euphonium ensemble in the United States in its modern form is credited to Constance (Connie) Weldon at the University of Miami in 1960. Connie Weldon created an opportunity for her students to gain the benefits and experience of playing chamber music. The ensembles were mainly one player to a part, with no conductor. This approach allowed tubists and euphoniumists to learn to play the inner harmonic voices, as well as develop the ability to handle melodies and more delicate, refined styles of music.

7 Morris, R. Winston. —The Evolution of the Tuba/Euphonium Ensemble.“ The Instrumentalist. 43 (December 1988): 15-17. 8 Morris, R. Winston. —The Evolution of the Tuba/Euphonium Ensemble.“ The Instrumentalist. 43 (December 1988): 15-17.

Figure 1: The Hoffnung Interplanetary Music Festival

Figure 2: Roger Bobo, Carnegie Recital Hall

This desire to create an opportunity for university tuba students to develop into well-rounded musicians is a common theme among university tuba professors. During a research poll for a doctoral dissertation written in 1973 by Gregory Lonman at the University of Miami, it was shown that the popularity of collegiate tuba-euphonium ensembles in the United States was rapidly growing, and both the need and benefits were universally recognized. The primary reason there were still some university tuba professors who neglected to have any such ensemble was the lack of good literature available at the time.9 In the late nineteen-sixties, Connie Weldon and the University of Miami Tuba- Euphonium Ensemble became quite active. The tuba-euphonium ensemble at the University of Miami became an officially accredited course for ensemble credit in 1967, and helped establish the tuba-euphonium ensemble as a serious, substantial musical group. In 1969, the University of Miami Tuba-Euphonium Ensemble performed at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic in Chicago, IL. This was historically significant as the first documented performance of a tuba-euphonium ensemble at a large conference. Much of the music the ensemble performed was from the —First International Tuba Ensemble Composition Contest“ held at the University of Miami, also in 1969. In the fall of 1960, Rex Connor accepted the first full-time position for a tuba and euphonium instructor in the United States at the University of Kentucky. Immediately after accepting the position, he began performing in small ensembles with his students. This helped lay the groundwork for later university tuba-euphonium ensembles in the United States. William Bell accepted a position at Indiana University in 1961 when he retired from the New York Philharmonic. As one of the most influential tubists and pedagogues in history, his work with tuba-euphonium ensembles was very influential. However, these ensembles were not serious artistic endeavors. The tuba-euphonium ensembles at the Indiana University during his career there were loosely organized, and the goal was primarily for enjoyment more than learning. According to Winston Morris, who was a student of William Bell, the music they performed was rather insubstantial. The

9 Lonman, Gregory C. The Tuba Ensemble: its Organization and Literature. Coral Gable, Florida: The University of Miami, 1974

—arrangements were mostly German beer drinking songs and a few other little crazy things that he would do“.10 This ensemble performed approximately once per year and only rehearsed two or three times before a concert. Among the students playing in this ensemble are some of the most well-known university tuba instructors of the twentieth century, such as R. Winston Morris and Constance Weldon. Currently there are approximately 60 full-time university tuba instructor positions in the U.S. This is in large part due to the efforts of Harvey Phillips, who helped establish the tuba as the primary bass voice in brass quintets. Prior to Harvey Phillips‘ efforts, the established brass quintet instrumentation in the United States included a bass trombone, rather than a tuba.11 Many full-time university tuba positions were created for this reason during the late sixties, and many more were created in the early and mid- seventies. Winston Morris accepted a position as tuba-euphonium instructor at Tennessee Technological University in 1967. The Tennessee Tech Tuba Ensemble is considered one of the most influential tuba-euphonium ensembles in history. According to Winston Morris, there were already several tuba students at the university when he arrived. There were enough tuba and euphonium students there to justify a new full-time faculty position. Morris convinced the administration that a tuba ensemble was necessary for the department of music to be competitive with other universities. He said —When I came to Tech in 1967, I convinced the administration of the university that every campus in the country had an organized, credit-bearing tuba ensemble. That wasn‘t true. (Laughter) But I told them that because I wanted to get the tuba ensemble in the curriculum as a class, so people could sign up for it, and rehearse a couple times a week and get credit for it.“12 Although the tuba-euphonium ensemble at Tennessee Tech was not a part of the required course load, Winston Morris expected all members of the studio to participate in the ensemble as part of the tuba curriculum. In his own words, he —wished to provide a vehicle for each student to develop musical skills that otherwise might not be challenged.“13 Today, this ensemble frequently

10 Morris, R. Winston, interview by author, 26 August 2007, Transcript 11 Morris, R. Winston, interview by author, 26 August 2007, Transcript 12 Morris, R. Winston, interview by author, 26 August 2007, Transcript 13 Morris, R. Winston. —The Evolution of the Tuba/Euphonium Ensemble.“ The Instrumentalist. 43

performs music of every genre, is the most recorded ensemble of its type in the world, and is known for exceptionally high standards of performance. It has served as a model for decades of studio and professional tuba-euphonium ensembles. Students of Winston Morris and Alumni of the Tennessee Technological University Tuba-Euphonium Ensemble are now professional performers, teachers, and professors around the world. The Tuba-Euphonium Ensemble of Tennessee Technological University began at a time when there was very little original music available for this type of ensemble. As seen in the program of the first concert of the Tennessee Tech Tuba Ensemble, the group performed a mix of arrangements and some of the few original works available (Figure 3). Morris took up the task of commissioning new music for his group. Currently, there are over six hundred pieces written for the Tennessee Technological University Tuba- Euphonium Ensemble. As the first ensemble of this type to be recorded and produced, the first to perform at Carnegie Hall, and certainly among the first to produce performances in the high art tradition of modern tuba-euphonium ensembles, it is impossible to gauge the impact of the Tennessee Tech Tuba-euphonium Ensemble, though it is clearly quite significant. Winston Morris has also made significant contributions to the tuba-euphonium community through other avenues. His Tuba Source Book is known as the primary reference for tuba history and literature. He eventually became co-founder and conductor of the professional tuba-euphonium ensemble known as Symphonia. This ensemble is comprised of some of the finest professional tubists and euphoniumists in the world. Morris is also one of the founders of the Tubists Universal Brotherhood Association, now known as the International Tuba Euphonium Association. This organization is the largest organization in the world for amateur and professional tubists and euphoniumists. He is also a founding member of the tuba jazz group —MJT Project“, or —Modern Jazz Tuba Project“.

(December 1988): 15-17.

Figure 3: Tennessee Technological University Tuba Ensemble

Figure 3 (continued)

The Matteson-Phillips Tubajazz Consort was the first Tuba-Euphonium ensemble devoted to the performance of jazz music. Organized by Rich Matteson and Harvey Phillips, other members included Ashley Alexander, Buddy Baker, Daniel Perantoni, Winston Morris, John Allred, John Marcellus, Jack Peterson, Tom Ferguson, Steve Harlos, Dan Haerle, Rufus Reid, Kelly Sill, Ed Soph, Rich Kirkland, and Steve Houghton. Its foundation was laid in the 1960‘s as Rich Matteson established his reputation as a jazz musician on tuba, bass trumpet, valve trombone, and euphonium. He was performing with groups such as the Dukes of Dixieland, the Bob Scobey Band, and with musicians such as Louis Armstrong and Pete Barbuti.

There were other notable events in the 1960‘s. Among these events was the formation of the Tubists Universal Brotherhood Association in 1966. T.U.B.A., now known as the International Tuba Euphonium Association or I.T.E.A., was organized by Robert Ryker from an unofficial social organization. This unofficial social organization, known as the —Royal Order of Shit-pots“, often met in McSorley‘s Old Ale House in Manhattan, New York in the 1930‘s.14 Among countless contributions to the tuba community, ITEA has furthered the advancement of the tuba-euphonium ensemble through sponsorship of composition, performance, and publicity.

Major Contributors William Bell William Bell was born in Creston, Iowa on Christmas day in 1902. He passed away in 1971, leaving a tremendous legacy. He was principal tubist with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the NBC Symphony Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic. He also performed with the John Philip Sousa Band. William Bell performed and narrated George Kleinsinger‘s Tubby the Tuba, and the famous arrangement of When Yuba Plays the Rhumba on the Tuba under Leopold Stokowski. William Bell brought a wealth of professional experience to his students at Indiana University œ Bloomington. In addition to his experience as a performer, he had previously taught at Columbia University Teachers College, The Julliard School, The Manhattan School of Music, The Cincinnati Conservatory, and The North Dakota University. His experience contributed both to the success of his students, who became professionals in both teaching and performance throughout the world, and to the nature and success of the first Indiana University Tuba-Euphonium Ensemble. As with many of the first collegiate tuba-euphonium ensembles, members of this group often became university tuba-euphonium instructors, and began tuba-euphonium ensembles of their own. As with the tuba itself, the tuba-euphonium ensemble quickly gained popularity in the early years and has continued to become more popular for decades. William Bell‘s students include such names as Winston Morris and Harvey Phillips. The well-known Tuba Christmas of Bloomington, Indiana, originally organized

14 ITEA Journal Online: http://www.iteaonline.org/1971/ITEAmedia/historypdfs/HistoryofTUBAleek.pdf

by Harvey Phillips, is dedicated to Bell. The following excerpt is from the Tuba Christmas website and application process: You are again invited to participate in one or more of the TUBACHRISTMAS concerts/events presented throughout the world. TUBACHRISTMAS was conceived in 1974 as a tribute to the late artist/teacher William J. Bell, born on Christmas Day, 1902. Through the legendary William J. Bell we reflect on our heritage and honor all great artists/teachers whose legacy has given us high performance standards, well structured pedagogy, professional integrity, personal values and a camaraderie envied by all other instrumentalists. The first TUBACHRISTMAS was conducted by the late Paul Lavalle in New York City's Rockefeller Plaza Ice Rink on Sunday, December 22, 1974. Traditional Christmas music performed at the first TUBACHRISTMAS was arranged by American composer Alec Wilder who ironically died on Christmas Eve, 1980. Wilder composed many solo and ensemble compositions for tuba and euphonium. He was a loyal supporter of every effort to improve the literature and public image of our chosen instruments. Through Alec Wilder we express our respect and gratitude to all composers who continue to embrace our instruments with their compositions and contribute to the ever growing solo and ensemble repertoire for tuba and euphonium.15

Roger Bobo Roger Bobo was born in Los Angeles, California in 1938. During the course of his impressive career, he was principal tubist in orchestras such as the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebow Orchestra, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. He was also a successful studio musician in the Hollywood area during his time with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. In addition, he has become a prominent orchestral conductor and brass pedagogue in Europe and Japan. He taught at the Fiesole School of Music near Florence, Italy, the Lausanne Conservatory in Switzerland, at the Rotterdams Konservatorium in the Netherlands, and at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England. Roger Bobo is one of the most

15 http://www.tubachristmas.com/whatis.htm

recorded tuba soloists in history. He is credited with numerous commissions for solo tuba. His students hold positions in symphony orchestras and in universities throughout the world.

Rex Conner Rex Conner was born in 1915 and died in 1995. He earned a Bachelor of Music Education degree at the University of Kansas, and a Master of Education degree from the University of Missouri. After teaching in public schools and at the Nebraska State Teachers College, he became a member of the 347th Army Air Force Band during World War II. He returned to teaching following the war. In 1957, he became a member of the faculty of the National Music Camp at Interlochen, Michigan, where he continued to spend his summers for twenty-five years. In 1960, he became a member of the faculty of the University of Kentucky School of Music. This was the first appointment of its kind in the history of the United States. He held a full-time appointment as applied professor of tuba and euphonium, and retired from the University of Kentucky in 1980.16

Rich Matteson Rich Matteson was born in Forest Lake, Minnesota in 1929, and died in 1993. He was known as one of the first successful jazz musicians with euphonium as their primary instrument. Matteson became an educator in the 1960‘s as well, when he became a clinician for Getzen Company. It was through education that Matteson made a large part of his contribution to music. He taught jazz improvisation at the University of North Texas, and eventually at the University of North Florida. He appeared as both jazz soloist and clinician at universities and high schools throughout the world on various low brass instruments, including euphonium, tuba, bass trumpet, and valve trombone. Together with Harvey Phillips, he helped form the Matteson-Phillips Tubajazz Consort in 1976. This was a jazz ensemble consisting entirely of musicians playing low brass instruments. The original ensemble included three euphoniums, three tubas, bass, drums, and piano. Performing worldwide, this group presented the tuba ensemble as a serious jazz medium. In addition to Harvey Phillips and Rich Matteson, the original

16 http://www.uky.edu/~skipgray/Site/Welcome.html

Matteson-Phillips Tubajazz Consort included such well-known musicians as John Marcellus, Daniel Parentoni, and R. Winston Morris.

R. Winston Morris R. Winston Morris was born in Barnwell, South Carolina in 1941. He earned a bachelor‘s degree from East Carolina University in 1962. He earned a master‘s degree from Indiana University, where he studied with William Bell. He published the Encyclopedia of Literature for the Tuba in collaboration with William Bell in 1966. In 1973, he published The Tuba Music Guide, which is regarded as the most definitive publication of tuba repertoire available. He is founder and co-director of such renowned groups as Symphonia, and The MJT Project, both of which are made up exclusively of professional tubists, euphoniumists, and other professional musicians. He has served as President, Vice-President, Past-President, Publications Coordinator, Journal Editor, and currently serves on the Honorary Advisory Board of the International Tuba Euphonium Association. Winston Morris has also been given the prestigious I.T.E.A. Lifetime Achievement Award. He has produced and commissioned numerous original works and arrangements for solo tuba.

Harvey Phillips Harvey Phillips was born in Aurora, Missouri on December 2, 1929. His parents, Jesse and Lottie Phillips, were farmers. His first private teacher was Homer Lee, who was director of a circus band. Homer Lee introduced the young Phillips to the tuba, in the form of a sousaphone. He took his first performing job with the King Brothers Circus during the summer before he attended the University of Missouri on scholarship. He left The University of Missouri to join the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus Band before completing the degree. He performed with the band for over two years. Eventually, Harvey Phillips moved to New York City to study with William Bell of the New York Philharmonic, and attended the Julliard School. He later attended the Manhattan School of Music as well. During his career, Harvey Phillips also performed with the United States Army Field Band, the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra, the New York City Opera, the New York City Ballet, and the Goldman Band. Harvey Phillips joined

the faculty of The Indiana University School of Music in 1971 where he attained the —Distinguished Professor of Music“ title in 1979.

Constance Weldon Constance (Connie) Weldon was born in Winter Haven, Florida. She graduated from high school in Miami, and attended the University of Miami where she studied with Bower Murphy. Ms. Weldon attended the Tanglewood Music Festival in Boston during the summer of 1951, where she worked with Leonard Bernstein. After completing her Bachelor of Music degree in 1952 and a Master of Education degree in 1953 from the University of Miami, she played with the Boston Pops Touring Orchestra. Following her career with The Boston Pops, she became a member of The North Carolina Symphony. In 1957 she became a Fulbright scholar, and studied in Amsterdam with tubist Adrian Boorsma. When she returned to the United States, she became a member of the Kansas City Philharmonic Orchestra. After playing in Missouri for two years, she returned once again to Miami to perform with the Miami Philharmonic Orchestra, and accept a faculty position at the University of Miami. Constance Weldon formed the University of Miami Tuba Ensemble in 1960. In 1972, Constance Weldon became the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies, and held that position until her retirement in 1991. She was eventually awarded the University of Miami Distinguished Alumna Award, the University of Miami Distinguished Woman of the Year, the World Who‘s Who of Women in Education, and the Pioneer Award of the International Women‘s Brass Conference. Connie Weldon brought a wealth of experience to her students from her studies with renowned teachers such as Arnold Jacobs, Bower Murphy, and William Bell, but from her experience as principal tubist in orchestras such as the North Carolina Symphony, the Netherlands Ballet Orkest, the Amsterdam Concertgebow, the Miami Philharmonic, and the Kansas City Philharmonic. Connie Weldon helped to establish a tradition for collegiate tuba-euphonium ensembles that was centered around chamber music, chamber music performance practice, and maintaining the highest artistic standards.

Conclusion Prior to the 1960‘s, the tuba and its players were not taken seriously. The instrument was considered a humorous novelty. When presented to the public, the tuba often inspired laughter. This began to change in the sixties as the tuba became accepted as the bass voice in the brass quintet, and new full-time university teaching positions were created for tubists. The instructors holding these positions took the lead in establishing tuba-euphonium ensembles as not only a serious artistic medium, but an opportunity for tuba players to develop their skills in ways not normally available in large ensembles. Rex Connor became the first full-time university tuba instructor in the United States in 1960. Soon after, other full-time university teaching positions were created. Constance Weldon founded the first university tuba-euphonium ensemble in the United States. She created opportunities for her students at the University of Miami to gain experience playing inner harmonies and melodic lines. Winston Morris started a tuba- euphonium ensemble at Tennessee Technological University. The Tennessee Tech Tuba Ensemble has been recorded numerous times and performed in a variety of prestigious venues. Educator and jazz artist, Rich Matteson combined his efforts with Harvey Phillips to create the Matteson-Phillips Tuba-jazz Consort. This was the first tuba- euphonium ensemble devoted to the performance of jazz music. These new ensembles were the beginning of what would become an important part of the history of the tuba.

CHAPTER 3 NEW ENSEMBLES, STANDARDS, AND TRADITIONS

In the 1970s, tuba-euphonium ensembles began to flourish across the United States. This followed the creation of several new full-time positions for university tuba instructors. Because these ensembles were among the first of their kind, there was a substantial deficit in original music and arrangements, established instrumentation, rehearsal techniques, and performance venues. This situation was addressed by members of the university and professional community through the commissioning of new music and frequent performances. Instructors such as Connie Weldon, Winston Morris, and Harvey Phillips were very active in the seventies. Connie Weldon performed frequently with her tuba- euphonium ensemble and established a chamber music tradition for her group. Winston Morris commissioned numerous compositions, held the first annual Tuba-Euphonium Symposium, and his tuba ensemble performed what would be the first of many performances in Carnegie Hall. Harvey Phillips started the popular Tuba Christmas and Octubafest celebrations. These people and events had a lasting impact on the tuba- euphonium ensembles of the United States.

Major Events Although tuba-euphonium ensembles were growing in popularity in the seventies, most of the literature was of questionable quality. According to Scott Watson, —The large tuba ensemble things that were available in most of the seventies, particularly in the first half generally were of low quality. Most of the time they were done by tuba players who weren‘t professional composers or arrangers and many times they sounded amateurish, frankly. They just weren‘t as good as we‘re accustomed to because in those days people didn‘t know some of the rules yet in terms of how to write for the horn, especially an ensemble, without making it sound too heavy or have too dense of a texture.“ 17 There was a need for new original compositions as well as new

17 Watson, Scott, interview by author, 2 August 2007, Transcript

arrangements. This issue was addressed in the latter half of the seventies by the efforts of tuba-euphonium instructors such as Winston Morris and Connie Weldon. The first Carnegie Recital Hall appearance of the Tennessee Tech Tuba Ensemble, or indeed any tuba-euphonium ensemble, was in 1976 (Figure 4). According to Winston Morris, the group had embarked on a nine-year preparation for this event starting in 1967.18 Before this important performance, the ensemble had produced two recordings. Leading to the Carnegie Recital Hall concert, Morris stated that he had —commissioned music like crazy“ from —any composer in a foxhole somewhere or any place I could track down a composer“.19 They had worked for nine years developing repertoire and preparing a program appropriate for a Carnegie Recital Hall performance. To convince composers to accept these commissions, usually for minimal compensation, he presented them with the opportunity to accept the challenge of writing for an unusual type of ensemble. They nearly all accepted the challenge he presented. Over the course of his career, Winston Morris commissioned and performed hundreds of pieces of new music for tuba-euphonium ensembles.

18 Morris, R. Winston, interview by author, 26 August 2007, Transcript 19 Morris, R. Winston, interview by author, 26 August 2007, Transcript

Figure 4: Tennessee Technological University Tuba Ensemble

Figure 4 (continued)

Once Winston Morris felt the ensemble had established itself as a viable performing group, he began to venture outside such serious repertoire. Since the late seventies, the Tennessee Tech Tuba Ensemble has performed approximately half jazz arrangements and half non-jazz arrangements. It was in the late seventies they started to perform music by a composer using the pen name —Pierre Garbáge,“ whose real name is James Garrett. For nearly forty years, the ensemble has held an annual Pierre Garbáge festival on campus (Figure 5). Although humorous in nature, this music was always of the highest quality. According to Morris, —we were drop dead serious about performing the music to the absolute best of our ability, and then to the extent that the music was a funny arrangement“.20 The Tennessee Tech Tuba Ensemble has a CD of Pierre Garbáge music entitled —Festival of Garbáge“ with Mark Records. The Tennessee Tech Tuba Ensemble still performed a large amount of more serious transcriptions and original compositions. According to Winston Morris, —we do real serious large transcriptions such as the Bach Toccata and Fugue in D minor or Night on Bald Mountain or whatever it might be, but the performance standards of all that stuff has to be equivalent to what the original piece would require if it was Night on Bald Mountain, then when we would perform it, the arrangement had to be a really good arrangement, not some piece of crap.“21 Morris challenged his tuba ensemble to perform transcriptions as well as they would be performed with the original instrumentation.

20 Morris, R. Winston, interview by author, 26 August 2007, Transcript 21 Morris, R. Winston, interview by author, 26 August 2007, Transcript

Figure 5: Tennessee Technological University Tuba Ensemble

Figure 5 (continued)

Another major event of the seventies was the beginning of Tuba Christmas. Tuba Christmas concerts are held across the United States and around the world every Christmas season. The event was originally formed by Harvey Phillips to honor William Bell, another important and influential tubist, and one of the first to have a university tuba-euphonium ensemble. In an interview, Harvey Phillips said —In November of 1974 I was searching for an idea to formulate an event honoring William Bell œ and through him, all those great people and performers who represent our heritage, people to whom we will forever be indebted.“22 The first Tuba Christmas was held in 1974 in Rockefeller Plaza in New York City. There were over 320 members for the first concert. Harvey Phillips secured the Ice Skating Rink and invited Paul Lavalle to conduct the ensemble. He also distributed hundreds of fliers. Harvey Phillips requested arrangements of Christmas Carols from Alec Wilder, who responded with 19 arrangements. The performance was a benefit for the Burned Children‘s fund of the Fireman‘s Auxiliary. All the participants wore Santa Claus suits to attract more attention and get more donations for the benefit.23 Since the first performance, Tuba Christmas has become a tradition across the United States at universities, shopping malls, city parks, street corners, hospitals, and nearly every possible venue. Tuba Christmas has also become a worldwide tradition. There are now hundreds of arrangements of Christmas tunes for this event, and many spectators look forward to it as an important part of their holiday experience. (Figure 6)

22 Lewis, David. —The Story Behind Octubafest and Tuba Christmas“. The Instrumentalist. (December 1988): 36-37, and 38.

23 Lewis, David. —The Story Behind Octubafest and Tuba Christmas“. The Instrumentalist. (December 1988): 36-37, and 38.

Figure 6: Tuba Christmas

Another important tradition was begun in 1973 by Harvey Phillips at the University of Indiana. Known mainly to tubists and euphoniumists, the annual Octubafest has become an important event in the tuba community. It was one of many events inspired by the first International Tuba Symposium. According to Harvey Phillips, he was inspired to organize this event for several reasons. He said in an interview with David Lewis; My thought was to produce at the beginning of the school year a series of five student recitals showcasing the solo and ensemble materials prepared the previous year by returning upperclassmen. I felt such a series would inspire the new students by illustrating the performance level of our older students and broadening their awareness of repertoire they would soon be studying. At the same time I wished to present the new freshmen performing the contest solos that they had played in their senior year of high school. I wanted to

invite the general public to these concerts, to expose them to the solo and ensemble literature for tuba and euphonium.24 Phillips‘ Octubafest tradition has helped to raise public awareness, and spawn several other organizations and traditions as well. Among these is a group known as the —Tubadours“. The Tubadours was formed in 1975 by tubist Jim Self. This group has performed at Disneyland for many years and has recorded CD‘s such as —The Mighty Tubadours“. They won the —Gong Show“ contest in 1977, a popular network television show. They are known for an entertaining show which includes lighter repertoire. Performances by this group are often humorous and entertaining. They are possibly the most well-known tuba-euphonium quartet ever formed, known by the general public as well as those involved in playing the tuba. They have reached an extremely wide audience, and were very influential in the changing role of the tuba as a more serious artistic voice. This mission to change the humorous stereotype of the tuba had become a common goal among tubists in the seventies. Tuba-euphonium instructors such as Winston Morris and Connie Weldon often felt they were fighting an uphill battle to establish tuba-euphonium ensembles as a legitimate performance medium. Tuba-euphonium ensembles, as well as tubists, were dealing with a humorous, comedic stereotype of the tuba and its players. A common goal among tuba and euphonium players was to defeat this stereotype. This common goal played an important role in the formation of an international group dedicated to the tuba and euphonium. Officially established in 1966 by Robert Ryker of the Montreal Symphony, the Tubists Universal Brotherhood Association (T.U.B.A.) was a newly established organization. Part of their mission in the seventies was to defeat the existing stereotype surrounding the tuba and its players. This important organization became international at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic in Chicago, IL in 1971. This is where the first officers of T.U.B.A. were chosen. The first president of the organization was Daniel Perantoni. It was also here that plans were laid for the First International Tuba

24 Lewis, David. —The Story Behind Octubafest and Tuba Christmas“. The Instrumentalist. (December 1988): 36-37, and 38.

Symposium Workshop, held at Indiana University the following year. This workshop eventually developed into the International Tuba-Euphonium Conference, which sponsors and promotes tuba-euphonium ensemble competitions, tuba-euphonium quartet competitions, holds composition competitions, and sponsors performances of tuba- euphonium ensembles comprised of professional tubists and euphoniumists from around the world. This organization is perhaps the most influential non-performing organization in the history of tuba-euphonium ensembles.

Major Contributors Winston Morris In the 1970s, Winston Morris‘ tuba-euphonium ensemble at Tennessee Technological University began to emerge as one of the most influential and historically significant tuba-euphonium ensembles in history. As a student at the University of Indiana, Winston Morris‘ tuba-euphonium ensemble experience was rather lighthearted. He said, —When we did the performances at The University of Indiana, I mean not only was the audience laughing the whole time we were playing, but sometimes the ensemble was laughing so hard we could hardly play, because everybody thought it was just a big joke.“25 This experience helped solidify Morris‘ approach as an instructor. He wanted to establish an ensemble that performed substantial music well and was taken seriously by all audiences. For the first several years of his teaching career at Tennessee Technological University, he refused to play anything at all that was the slightest bit humorous. A program from a recital at the university in 1970 included arrangements of works such as Es ist ein Ros‘ entsprungen and Lute Dance, among others.26 He embarked on an extremely successful effort to commission high quality, serious music for tuba-euphonium ensembles. When he felt the ensemble had established itself as a serious artistic ensemble, he began to include jazz arrangements and more light-hearted compositions while maintaining a standard of musical excellence in the ensemble.

25 Morris, R. Winston, interview by author, 26 August 2007, Transcript 26 Perry, Richard Henry. Tennessee Tech Tuba Ensemble. Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Madison, 1996

Harvey Phillips As an advocate for the tuba and the tuba-euphonium ensemble as a serious artistic voice, Harvey Phillips commissioned over 100 tuba solos. He also started the popular Tuba Christmas tradition and the annual Octubafest, which greatly helped in the effort to change the stereotype of the tuba. Although somewhat softened in the seventies, the comedic stereotype of the tuba and its players was still quite strong. No tubist was more aware of this fact than Harvey Phillips. He presented the tuba and euphonium to the public as a substantive artistic medium at every opportunity.

Connie Weldon The University of Miami tuba studio was under the direction of Connie Weldon. Still among the leaders of collegiate tuba-euphonium ensembles, they were in the process of commissioning new music, performing, and producing university instructors schooled in the University of Miami tradition. The —Brass Tacks“ tuba-euphonium ensemble of the University of Miami was well known. This organization commissioned several works for chamber ensembles comprised of tubas and euphoniums. Performance was always at the highest level, which influenced other collegiate groups in the United States as well as professional organizations and international ensembles. Connie Weldon viewed the tuba-euphonium ensemble as an opportunity for students to perform chamber music. The size of the ensembles tended to be relatively small, and they often performed without a conductor. Interestingly, Connie Weldon was developing her chamber music approach to tuba-euphonium ensemble while unaware of the nature of activity at Tennessee Technological University, which followed a mass tuba ensemble approach. She said, —I didn‘t know that Tennessee Tech was doing the mass tuba concept at the time, and of course they didn‘t know that we were doing the chamber music concept.“27 In spite of their different approaches, both Connie Weldon and Winston Morris wanted to create opportunities for students of the tuba and euphonium to develop fundamental musical skills such as hearing inside parts and playing melodic lines. Although different, both approaches provide opportunities to develop those skills. The differences in Connie

27 Brubeck, David, and Olah, John. —Connie‘s Final Toot!“ TUBA Journal, Summer 1991: 28-37

Weldon‘s philosophy and that of Winston Morris represent two distinct schools of thought which have survived into the twenty-first century.

Conclusion Leading into the 1980‘s, tuba-euphonium ensembles were becoming more widely recognized. University instructors such as Winston Morris and Connie Weldon were tireless advocates for tuba-euphonium ensembles. They commissioned new works, and their ensembles performed frequently. Under the direction of Winston Morris, the Tennessee Technological University Tuba Ensemble performed in Carnegie Recital Hall, and made several commercial recordings. Harvey Phillips started traditions such as Tuba Christmas and Octubafest, which grew to international proportions by the twenty-first century. The Tubists Universal Brotherhood Association (T.U.B.A.) was officially established in the seventies. T.U.B.A. is an international organization which promotes the tuba, its players, and its repertoire. Performers and instructors of the seventies laid a strong foundation for the future of tuba-euphonium ensembles. The growth and development that occurred next would not have been possible without their efforts.

CHAPTER 4 GROWTH AND EXPANSION

The last two decades of the twentieth century were a period of tremendous growth for tuba-euphonium ensembles in the United States. This growth occurred in the areas of repertoire, performance, and the formation of tuba-euphonium ensembles consisting of professional musicians such as a group known as Symphonia. There were many commissions for new music by various groups such as those works composed for conferences held by the Tubists Universal Brotherhood Association (T.U.B.A.), the Armed Forces Tuba-Euphonium workshops, and the Tennessee Technological University Tuba Ensemble. The eighties and nineties also saw the creation of new tuba-euphonium quartets and conference ensembles. Among these were ensembles such as the All-Star ensembles of T.U.B.A. conferences and the groups of the United States Army Band Tuba-Euphonium Workshops. Tuba-euphonium ensembles became not only common in university tuba-euphonium studios but were also very serious ensembles that performed often and commissioned new music on a regular basis. There was a marked improvement in popularity, quality, and standards of tuba-euphonium ensembles at every level from high school to professional.

Major Events The U.S. Army Band Tuba-Euphonium Conference was first held in Washington, D.C. in 1983. It was first organized by Colonel Eugene W. Allen (former leader and commander of the United States Army Band), Jack Tilbury, Ross Morgan, Bob Powers, Neal Corwell, Jeff Arwood, and John Mueller.28 Ross Morgan, Jack Tilbury, and Jeff Arwood were discussing the lack of performance opportunities for military band tuba and euphonium players in the Washington, D.C. area when they decided to establish a small tuba-euphonium workshop at Fort Myer, Virginia.29 This

28 Arwood, Jeff. The United States Army Band Tuba-Euphonium Conference, International Tuba Euphonium Association, Volume 34, Number 4, Spring 2007.

29 Arwood, Jeff. The United States Army Band Tuba-Euphonium Conference, International Tuba Euphonium Association, Volume 34, Number 4, Spring 2007.

workshop featured several members of the Washington, D.C. area premiere military band tuba and euphonium sections, as well as members of the National Symphony Orchestra and retired military personnel. This conference included one of the earliest tuba-euphonium ensembles which consisted exclusively of professional tubists and euphoniumists. The ensemble included members of the premier United States military bands in Washington, D.C. The conference also included a mass tuba-euphonium ensemble made up of military personnel who participated in the workshop. By the third year of the workshop, Winston Morris was asked to conduct the mass ensemble. He accepted the role as conductor of the Armed Forces Massed Tuba-Euphonium Ensemble but also wanted to conduct the select group.30 The select ensemble, which came to be known as the Armed Forces Tuba- Euphonium Ensemble consisted mainly of principal players of premiere military bands. This ensemble also performed at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic in Chicago, Illinois in 1988. This performance was recorded and published as a live album. They recorded a studio album with Mark Records in the early nineties. The ensemble consisted of some of the finest tubists and euphoniumists in the United States. Winston Morris described this group as —some incredible players …the best euphonium players in the country. No doubt about that“.31 According to Jeff Arwood, one of the organizers of the workshop, a secondary goal of the organization was to —enhance the image of military musicians and military bands“.32 The select ensemble helped reach this goal by featuring world-class musicians. This ensemble also demonstrated the possibilities of professional musicians performing serious original repertoire in a tuba-euphonium ensemble. Another important group of musicians performing serious repertoire in a tuba- euphonium ensemble was known as Symphonia. Scott Watson and Winston Morris, co- artistic directors of the group, developed the idea for an ensemble of professional tubists during meetings of Tubists Universal Brotherhood Association (T.U.B.A.) executive committee members. In the early nineties, Dr. Jerry Young regularly hosted committee

30 Morris, R. Winston, interview by author, 26 August 2007, Transcript 31 Morris, R. Winston, interview by author, 26 August 2007, Transcript 32 Arwood, Jeff. The United States Army Band Tuba-Euphonium Conference, International Tuba Euphonium Association, Volume 34, Number 4, Spring 2007.

meetings of the T.U.B.A. executive committee at Interlochen, Michigan during the summers. As part of these meetings, the committee performed a concert consisting of both standard works and new tuba-euphonium ensemble music. The executive committee included such renowned professional musicians as Sam Pilafian, Scott Watson, Don Little, Skip Gray, Brian Bowman, John Stevens, and many others. The concerts this group performed were met with enthusiasm by both audiences and members of the ensemble. Scott Watson said of the event, —We were really gassed out about how really good it sounded!“33 This enthusiasm fostered an interest in future ensembles of this type. In 1993, Scott Watson and Winston Morris were guest artists at the annual Arizona Low Brass Symposium. On the return trip, they discussed some possibilities for creating an ensemble of professional players. Watson said to Morris, —You know, people need to hear what this music sounds like if played by absolutely the top players of the instrument and it would be great too if we could get recordings“.34 Morris replied with —You‘re absolutely right. We should do something about that“.35 Symphonia formed as a result of this conversation. Their first performance was at a subsequent University of Arizona Low Brass Symposium. They eventually performed around the world and produced multiple recordings with Mark Records. Symphonia originally consisted of university instructors due to scheduling concerns and because university professors were more likely to attend major conferences. The goal of this new organization was to have a tuba-euphonium ensemble that consisted of professional musicians, played serious repertoire, and was prepared to give an excellent performance. There had previously been many impromptu reading groups formed at various conferences and workshops, often commissioning new music for tuba- euphonium ensembles. Although consisting of professional tubists and euphoniumists, these groups were not necessarily well-prepared. According to Winston Morris and others who were involved with or directed these ensembles, the individual parts were consistently very well played. Due to time constraints, however, these reading groups usually did not work out any of the balance or blending issues common in homogenous

33 Watson, Scott, interview by author, 2 August 2007, Transcript 34 Watson, Scott, interview by author, 2 August 2007, Transcript 35 Watson, Scott, interview by author, 2 August 2007, Transcript

ensembles. While it was enjoyable to hear so many professional low brass players together, the resulting performance was usually somewhat disappointing to both performers and audiences. According to Morris, —This was not helping the image of the tuba and the euphonium with the average person out on the street“.36 In order to reach the full potential of a tuba-euphonium ensemble consisting of professional musicians, Watson and Morris wanted to create an ensemble that was prepared to perform at a professional level. This desire was the basis for the philosophy of Symphonia. Symphonia usually met at large tuba-euphonium conferences, workshops, or symposia to rehearse during the event and sometimes perform. The group often recorded during conferences as well. By 2008, Symphonia had three recordings published. The group nearly always performed for audiences consisting mainly of other tubists. Exceptions include performances at events such as the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic and the Great American Brass Band Festival in Danville, KY. Symphonia was very well-received at every performance. Winston Morris said, —We probably could have walked out there, and because that was a great bunch of players and they were all popular players, and they all had their fans, we could have probably walked out there and exploded and everybody would have just said ”Oh isn‘t that wonderful!‘ because everybody thought the people in there were terrific people. But, you know, the group always sounded great“.37 In keeping with the reason it was formed, the members of Symphonia consistently rehearsed and performed to the best of their ability. According to Morris, —They would be a professional group, and when they went out in public, it would be a well-rehearsed performance, and it would be nailed to the wall. There wouldn‘t be any doubt about the quality of what we‘re doing here“.38 Scott Watson, co-artistic director and one of the founders of Symphonia, felt professional tuba-euphonium ensembles such as Symphonia, and especially tuba-euphonium quartets, are essential to the continuity of the art and culture surrounding tubas and euphonium players. He said these groups can —transplant and supersede people‘s prejudice about what the instrumentation is“. He also said of professional tuba-euphonium quartets —The playing is just so good it doesn‘t matter if

36 Morris, R. Winston, interview by author, 26 August 2007, Transcript 37 Morris, R. Winston, interview by author, 26 August 2007, Transcript 38 Morris, R. Winston, interview by author, 26 August 2007, Transcript

they were playing four kazoos“.39 Professional tuba and euphonium players were bringing a musical product to the public that was on a level comparable to other professional chamber ensembles. The members of Symphonia included co-artistic directors Scott Watson and Winston Morris, as well as performers Brian L. Bowman, Daniel Perantoni, David Werden, Denis W. Winter, Earle Louder, Fritz Kaenzig, Gail Robertson, Hank Feldman, Jeffrey L. Funderburk, Jerry Young, John Stevens, John Mueller, Larry Campbell, Mark Nelson, Marty Erickson, Neal Corwell, Paul Droste, Rex Martin, Sam Pilafian, Thomas Ashworth, and Timothy J. Northcut. These people were among the most influential tubists and euphoniumists of their time, and the influence of this group is perhaps the most widespread of ensembles of this type. The group was followed by such groups as the Tokyo Bari-Tuba Ensemble, Euphoniums Unlimited, and others around the world.

Major Contributors Winston Morris Winston Morris was touring and recording extensively with the Tennessee Technological University Tuba Ensemble by the 1980s. His ensemble became widely known among tubists, euphoniumists, and university music departments. His group performed on such venues as the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Recital Hall (1982 and 1986), the 1982 World‘s Fair, the Smithsonian Institute, International Tuba Euphonium Association Conferences, and several universities and high schools (Figure 7). For biographical information, please see chapter 2 of this document.

Scott Watson Scott Watson was born in central Alabama. He completed a bachelor‘s degree at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and a master‘s degree at the University of Kansas. He accepted a faculty position at the University of Kansas in 1979, where he founded and directs the popular University of Kansas Tuba-Euphonium Consort and performs with the Kansas Brass Quintet. He has performed with the Kansas City Symphony, Chestnut Brass Company, the New American Tuba Quartet, and numerous

39 Watson, Scott, interview by author, 2 August 2007, Transcript

other professional ensembles. He currently performs with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Fountain City Brass Band, and many others. He has recorded numerous CD‘s as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral musician.

Figure 7: Tennessee Technological University Tuba Ensemble

Figure 7 (continued)

Scott Watson has commissioned numerous solo works for tuba as well as new music for tuba-euphonium ensemble. The University of Kansas Tuba-Euphonium Consort has performed at numerous conferences such as the International Tuba- Euphonium Association Conference, the United States Army Band Tuba-Euphonium Conference, the National Music Educators Conference, the Great Plains Tuba- Euphonium Conference, and the Kansas Music Educator‘s Workshop. The University of Kansas Tuba-Euphonium Consort also frequently gives local performances and has commissioned numerous new works for tuba-euphonium ensemble. Scott Watson is also co-founder and co-artistic director of Symphonia, a large tuba-euphonium ensemble consisting of some of the world‘s leading professional tuba and euphonium players.

Conclusion By the end of the twentieth century, tuba-euphonium ensembles were flourishing across the United States. In addition to many new collegiate ensembles, tuba-euphonium ensembles consisting entirely of professional musicians were formed. These included such groups as Symphonia and the Armed Forces Tuba-Euphonium Ensemble. There was a tremendous availability of repertoire for these ensembles, including both transcriptions and original music. They frequently performed on a wide array of venues including Carnegie Recital Hall, the Smithsonian Institute, and the Kennedy Center. They also appeared at major conferences such as the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic, the United States Army Band Tuba-Euphonium Conference, and T.U.B.A. Conferences. By the 1980s and 1990s, the early twentieth century stereotype for the tuba and its players had been altered to a more respectable position in the world of music. The tuba- euphonium ensemble had defined its place in music parallel to the changing role of the tubist. For more information on specific repertoire, see the Tuba Source Book, by R. Winston Morris and Daniel Perantoni.

APPENDIX 1 ORAL INTERVIEW WITH R. WINSTON MORRIS, 26 AUGUST, 2007

Lair: Well, my first question I have for you then is can you describe the cultural and professional climate related to tuba ensembles in the 1970s? Morris: In the 1970s? Well, let me go back a little bit further than that if you don‘t mind. Lair: Great. Morris: You know, now are you taping this or are you going to remember this with your pornographic memory or how is this going to work? Lair: I‘m recording it. Morris: O.K. Let‘s go back to like, you know, the mid-sixties if you don‘t mind, just for a little bit, what was going on in terms of tuba ensemble activities on the collegiate level. There was certainly nothing going on professionally at that point. The only thing that had preceded the little bit of activity going on in the middle sixties was a couple of English quartets that had existed and this was a couple of pieces of music, not ensembles per se, but there were a couple of four part tuba pieces that were written in England in the mid- fifties and this was primarily from the brass band movement and it was stuff that would use two E-flat tubas and two B-flat tubas. And there were just about three or four pieces that were published. And they were just taking advantage of the tuba section of the brass band. Now that was through the fifties. There was one of the Hoffnung recordings. I‘m not sure if you‘re familiar with those or not. Gerard Hoffnung was a British cartoonist and an amateur tuba player and in one of his recordings in the late fifties, I think, 1958, he had a tuba quartet on there that was a Chopin piece that had been arranged for four tubas and it was performed in this big festival they call Hoffnung Festival, which was a really humorous kind of a thing, sort of a PDQ Bach kind of approach to everything. Malcolm Arnold did a piece for vacuum cleaner and orchestra. The famous horn player, I can‘t remember his name right now, from England, played a Mozart Concerto on a garden hose, and they had the tuba quartet come out and play this Chopin Mazurka, and of course the audience, I‘ve got a recording of that, the audience for that just absolutely goes crazy, so the thought of multiple tubas on the stage up through the mid-fifties and into the early sixties was more of a humorous thing than anything else.

In the mid-sixties, sixty-four, sixty-five, along in there, sixty-six, there were about three things that were happening that sort of laid the ground work for the tuba ensemble movement, and that was Connie Weldon was just kicking off some really interesting stuff down at the University of Miami, and they were doing some serious repertoire, some transcriptions, commissioning some original pieces. This was strictly a chamber music approach, one person on a part. They were doing trios, quartets, quintets. And this went on for quite a few years from the mid-sixties all the way up into the mid-seventies or so, and the University of Miami with Connie Weldon, who is still alive, by the way, and lives over in XXXXXXX, North Carolina. If you‘d like to contact her she‘d be glad to tell you the stuff that she was doing at that point. The other thing that was going on was Rex Connor had taken a tuba position at the University of Kentucky. I‘m not sure of the year on that, but I know that he was teaching there as early as around 1961, ”62. And I may be wrong about this, but I‘m thinking that maybe this may have been one of if not the very first full-time tuba positions at any college anywhere. We had a few tuba teachers around the country around sixty, sixty-one, sixty-two, but they were like adjunct people. They were in the local orchestra. They would show up one afternoon a week, or the kids who went to school there would go to the teacher‘s house and take lessons. I‘m talking a full-time in residence tenure track tuba position. I‘m not sure that anything predates the University of Kentucky position, which went back to about sixty-one, sixty- two for sure. I was aware of Rex Connor being at the University of Kentucky, and Rex was doing some duets with some of his students and I‘m not aware that he did anything much more than duets, but at least he was planning a scene for a multiple tuba approach to things. The only other thing that was happening is at the same time, around sixty-two, sixty-three when Bill Bell accepted the position at Indiana University, which may well have been the second, or so, full-time tuba position when he retired from the New York Philharmonic and went to Indiana University in sixty-two I do believe. I ended up there in sixty-four doing graduate work with him and Mr. Bell had a multiple tuba, he had a tuba ensemble, and it was a very loose, unofficial organization. It was not listed in the curriculum. It carried no credit. And it was as much a fun thing, it was more of a fun thing than a serious thing, and it did not have regular rehearsals and they might do one program a year and you might have two or three rehearsals before that. The

arrangements were mostly German beer drinking songs and a few other little crazy things that he would do, and by 1964 I was a part of that at Indiana University. And no serious original compositions being done, just very, a lot of transcriptions and like I said German beer drinking songs. This was in the mid-sixties, sixty-four, sixty-five, sixty-six, and that did not continue. It only went on for a couple of years at Indiana and to my knowledge that was it. I am unaware of anything else in the world that was going on multiple tuba- wise. The English thing was only back to the mid-fifties and that was just like three or four pieces of music that were published that utilized the two E-flat tubas and the two B- flat tubas in the British brass band. And then, but there was never any performances of any of that stuff that were significant other than the Hoffnung Festival thing that happened in fifty-eight, so that was that and nothing else was taking place in England and after that one little initial thing there. To my knowledge, I am unaware of anything else that was going on in the United States in the sixties and early seventies other than the three situations that I‘m telling you about, University of Miami, University of Kentucky, and Indiana University. And, uh, so, when I came to Tennessee Tech University in 1967, which I‘m starting my forty-first year here now. I‘m too stupid to retire, I think. (laughter) So, when I came here in 1967 I had a fair number of students that were enrolled here at the university and this again was one of the very early full-time tuba positions in 1967. There were just a handful around the country. You know, nowadays, there is what 50 or 60 full-time tuba positions across the country and of course we owe that to Harvey Phillips for establishing the tuba as the primary instrument in the brass quintet, because colleges wanted to have full-time faculty brass quintets. College music schools across the country, conservatories and stuff wanted to have their own faculty brass quintet and thanks to Harvey pushing the tuba as being the primary instrument in the quintet rather than the American brass quintet approach where it had a tenor trombone and a bass trombone. If that had won out, we wouldn‘t have anywhere near the tuba positions that we have these days, so thanks to the popularity of the brass quintet, tuba teachers are being hired in the late sixties, early seventies, mid-seventies, and even into the early eighties throughout the country, and so today we‘ve got fifty, sixty, seventy, I don‘t know how many full-time tuba faculty on college campuses across the United

States. Thanks to the brass quintet movement more than any other single thing. So at any rate when I came here in 1967, there was a fair number of students that were here. By fair I mean maybe 4 or 5 euphonium students and 6, 7, 8 tuba students that were already enrolled here and that was why I was being hired, because they had enough students at that point to justify hiring a full-time tuba teacher, plus they already had a full-time trumpet, a full-time horn, full-time trombone. They wanted to have a faculty brass quintet, so you need a tuba, so bang, they create a position. I get hired. And this was, the same thing was happening on other campuses across the country at the same time, in the late sixties, real late sixties, and early seventies. So the climate in the early seventies was as I described to you. That was the background. There had been no serious, concerted, organized approach to doing any kind of tuba ensemble activity previous to around 1968, 69, 70, along in there. When I came to Tech in 1967, I convinced the administration of the university that every campus in the country had an organized, credit-bearing tuba ensemble. That wasn‘t true. (laughter) But I told them that because I wanted to get the tuba ensemble in the curriculum as people could sign up for it, and rehearse a couple times a week and get credit for it. And then, Oh O.K. well fine, then, they bought that line and the next thing I know, you know, within a couple of semesters I had the tuba ensemble as part of the actual curriculum. Not as a required ensemble. Of course I expected all my majors to be involved in that, but at least it had credit. You could, you know, you could sign up for it, get an hour‘s credit, you get a grade for it like any other class. So at that point it became, that was a different level of operation versus what was going on that had gone on at Indiana and the thing at Indiana only lasted, oh, sixty-two, sixty-three, sixty-four, sixty-five. It only lasted three or four years because Mr. Bell‘s health went down hill and he lost interest in it. When Harvey took his, Bell‘s place, he had no interest in an organized tuba ensemble per se, so the thing at Indiana literally only lasted about two or three four years in the middle, mid- sixties and then it died out. Rex Connor did not continue to pursue what he had initiated at Kentucky, other than some duet playing. Connie Weldon did continue to pursue in a very, very serious manner music for multiple tubas at the University of Miami, and her approach was a chamber music approach. That means it was always, there was at least, there was one on a part. They didn‘t get into the tuba ensemble tuba choir, where you

would have multiple individuals on a part, so everything they did at Miami. Connie and I have had discussions on this and we‘re real dear friends, and in those early days, I had a different approach. My approach started in 1967 was the large tuba choir where we were doubling the repertoire, doubling the parts, and so I would have maybe a four-part piece. I‘d have, you know, maybe sixteen people playing it, and there‘d be four to six people on each part. So there was a difference in a string quartet and a string orchestra, a brass quintet or a brass choir, a tuba-euphonium quartet versus a tuba-euphonium choir. And we were doing a lot of chamber stuff at the same time, but also the large ensemble that I initiated was a choir approach where we were doubling the parts. So that‘s where, that was the climate; I think this is what you‘re after. That‘s where we were in the early, early seventies, early through the mid-seventies. All that make sense to you? Lair: Absolutely. Fantastic information. Thank you. Morris: Where would you like to go from here? I mean I can just keep going and going and going. You know me, I have a motor mouth. You just push a button and it starts going, so I want to be sure that we get you the information that you want. Lair: Well, you‘ve given me fantastic information so far. How about we go to the 1970‘s then, and just keep going in the same vein? Morris: Alright. Well, in the seventies then, and I really need to speak from this point forward pretty much about just simply what I was doing here at the school on my campus. There were other things going on on other campuses, but in all honesty it was at a very minimal level at that point, and I‘m talking now early seventies, mid-seventies, late seventies. The group here at Tennessee Tech University. It took a few years to really establish exactly what kind of organization we were looking for. You‘ve got to understand that when we started in 1967 with a large tuba ensemble, and like I said we started out with like six euphoniums and eight or nine tubas. You‘ve got to understand that there was no repertoire. There was no music. Nothing had been composed for a large tuba ensemble. The only unofficial arrangements that had been done were a couple things that Bill Bell had done at Indiana and they were German beer drinking songs. And that was not the approach that I wanted. I wanted to establish the tuba ensemble as a serious part of the curriculum, and not something that you just do peripherally on the side, that was something that you do and then when you get through doing it you have a

big party. And that was the approach at Indiana, and when we did the performances at Indiana, I mean not only was the audience laughing the whole time we were playing, but sometimes the ensemble was laughing so hard we could hardly play, because everybody thought it was just a big joke. Because that was an extension to some extent to Gerard Hoffnung approach of —Oh, Chopin for four tubas? That‘s got to be the most hilarious thing in the world“. And if you‘ve never heard that recording from 1958 Hoffnung Festival, you know, the audience is laughing their brains out, and then not only is the quartet playing, and playing quite nicely by the way, they are playing this tune and then in the middle of the tune they put mutes in the tubas, and of course the audience just falls on the floor because this was just the most hilarious thing they had ever conceived of. Number one, multiple tubas playing Chopin and then putting mutes in there. It was just the funniest thing in the world. So the Indiana thing was maybe one step, one notch up, not quite that crazy, but just a notch or two more serious about it, and so when I started the thing in Tennessee, I convinced everybody, I didn‘t let them know that. For quite a few years I was, stayed away from anything humorous or fun. And I‘m a humorous fun guy by the way! (laughter) But I wanted to get, I wanted to establish a serious approach to what was going on with that and you‘ve got to remember this was the very earliest days of T.U.B.A., which really hadn‘t even started when I first came here in sixty-seven. But within a year or two was kicking off and tubists around the country and around the world were deciding that the image of the tuba was a pretty negative stereotype imagery as far as not only the instrument itself but the player and if we were ever going to be taken seriously as professionals by our colleagues in the music world, much less the world at large the audience the regular average audience member, if we were ever going to be taken serious, we had to break away from some of these negative, humorous stereotypes that preceded what we were trying to do. So for quite a while there, and I‘m just speaking for myself now. I may have gone a hair overboard, but I don‘t think so. And being drop dead serious about the tuba ensemble as a serious media of musical expression, and we just didn‘t get into any kind of fun stuff or hilarious stuff, or I figured if we get out on the stage and we‘re taking ourselves serious, then the audience will take us serious. But if we get out there, and it‘s just a big joke, then the audience will consider it a big joke. We make no progress whatsoever, and we‘re just perpetuating the

stereotypical imagery of the tubist as a buffoon. Someone that just drinks beer and farts through the tuba. (laughter) So for quite a few years we just did drop dead serious stuff. Now later on about ten years later, we got involved with some stuff called Pierre Garbage, and that‘s another story I can talk, I‘ll tell you about that when we get to it, but the early, very earliest days in the late sixties, early seventies up to mid-seventies was, I was drop dead serious about it. And because I was determined that people were going to take this serious and I wanted to develop the ensemble as a serious, legitimate means of musical expression. And a musical outlet for euphonium students and tuba students. And the primary reason that I was motivated to do this was the lack of opportunities that existed on campus. And this would be true of any campus. The lack of opportunities that existed for the euphonium majors and the tuba majors. You had trumpet majors that were playing in the band, they were playing in the brass choir, they were playing in the brass quintet, they were playing in the orchestra, they were playing in the jazz band, etc. So you maybe have an outstanding trumpet section, these guys these students may have four or five, six different ensembles. And the tuba players had band. And if there was a brass choir, there would be one or two of them in a brass choir. If there was a brass quintet, one of them would be in a quintet. One tuba player would be in the orchestra. No tubas would be in the jazz band. So the opportunity for tubists to develop their musical skills was severely limited. And if that was true of the tuba student, imagine the situation in those days for the euphoniumist. They had one, they had band. And if there was a brass choir, there would be one or two euphonium players in the band or in the brass choir. They didn‘t play in the brass quintet. They didn‘t play in the orchestra. They didn‘t play in the jazz band. And so you‘ve got trumpet players and trombone and horn players that have five, six, different kinds of musical opportunities to develop their skills and euphonium players with one and a half maybe band, and if the brass choir existed then the brass choir. That was it! So this was the major motivating factor that I had to develop the tuba ensemble as a serious means of musical expression because I had these students and they weren‘t being challenged. Because, you know, that the average tuba part in the average band piece and you know the average euphonium part in the average band piece. This was not challenging. I mean you think about the average trumpet part, the average flute part, the

average clarinet part, the average oboe part. These students are developing musical skills like crazy, so they had not only more ensembles and opportunities to be involved in ensembles, but the repertoire they played in these ensembles was much more challenging than the same repertoire was for the tuba part. And the euphonium part, so there were just multiple reasons why the tuba student and the euphonium student were not being challenged. And as a result on most campuses, you now there are always exceptional people that, exceptional tuba players and exceptional euphonium players around the country that popped up here and there at sometimes unlikely schools. All of the sudden this incredible euphonium player somewhere in some little rinky-dink school, and this incredible tuba player from out in the middle of nowhere. Well, there are always people like that, but the average tuba student and the average euphonium student had no opportunities whatsoever in the sixties and seventies. And so that was my primary motivation is that a large tuba ensemble, tuba euphonium ensemble was a means to an end. It was not an end in itself, and it never has been for me although I‘m sure a lot of people probably think that it was. But the ensemble was a means to an end in that the means was that this afforded each individual person in the ensemble the opportunity to develop their musical skills far above and beyond their ability to do that if they did not have this ensemble available to them. I think that philosophy has paid off, Chris, I mean this is a pretty small little school here, and I‘ve been through a couple hundred tuba and euphonium students, and there is an awful lot of extremely successful performers and teachers out there in the profession today who came through the program at Tennessee Tech. And, you know, I mean some really outstanding people and you know who some of them are and like I could give you a whole big long list of names. Well, there‘s no way that that preponderance of people would have come through this program at this small school if it hadn‘t been for that ensemble. And that ensemble was the motivating factor for those people to develop their skills and as a result these people, you know, they did, it paid off. Individually for the individual people involved, of course it paid off collectively in that the ensemble has become a very well known ensemble and etc. The early approach to what we were doing in the late sixties and early seventies culminated in our first performance at Carnegie Hall in March of 1976. And that was the point that we

had worked for the previous, since 1967 to 1976, for those nine years, we had prepared this group to take it to Carnegie Hall. And so our first performance at Carnegie Hall, we‘ve done seven now, but our first performance at the Carnegie Recital Hall was in March of 1976. By that point, we had also produced two recordings. They were, we had already done a recording the year before that for Golden Crest Records, and then in 1976 immediately following the Carnegie Hall performance, we stayed in New York and did our second recording in 1976, so that‘s the point when we can officially say that the tuba- euphonium ensemble, at least at Tennessee Tech University arrived at the point where it was a serious enough ensemble to be taken seriously to the extent that it was a group that could present an entire full program at Carnegie Hall, or Carnegie Recital Hall. And so that was sort of like, you know the payoff after nine years of work. We worked for nine years developing repertoire, commissioning music like crazy. Every time I could find a composer in a foxhole somewhere or any place I could track down a composer, I was commissioning music and I mean the commission might be, — I‘ll buy you a case of beer“, or it might be a hundred bucks or something like that, you know, or and frequently, frequently I would approach well known composers and say —We have no funds, we‘ve got this new ensemble. It‘s really interesting. Do you want to consider the music challenge of trying to write something for this group?“ And I was almost never turned down, and I was approaching composers that normally wouldn‘t write unless they had a major commission of some kind. And I would present this to the composer as a musical challenge. —Do you have what it takes as a composer to sit down and write a serious piece of music for multiple euphoniums and tubas and make it something that will work and make it sound good with the group?“ —Well, let me think about that, boy that sounds real interesting. Yeah, maybe I can come up with something for it.“ And you know, three months later something shows up in the mail. So I mean, Chris, we‘ve commissioned and generated literally hundreds and hundreds of pieces of music. There is a complete list of all the original pieces. There is a complete list of all the, all the serious arrangements and transcriptions. And by that, I mean, you know, major transcriptions and major arrangements. And then there are hundreds and hundreds of little inconsequential arrangements and transcriptions of pieces that people have done over the past forty years. So we‘re in the process of putting together a book on the forty

year history of the Tennessee Tech Tuba Ensemble. And it will also contain a biographical section on me, which was something I argued against a little bit, but the two guys that are putting the book together said —Well, you know, it‘s like the chicken and the egg. If it wasn‘t for me there wouldn‘t have been the tuba ensemble.“ And blah, blah, blah. Morris: So, do you know Charlie McAdams? Lair: Sure! Yeah. Morris: Yeah. Charlie McAdams is now Dean of the College of Fine Arts at Northeast Missouri State University; I believe it‘s called, in Maryville. I‘m not sure what school he is. And he‘s one of my former students. He used to teach tuba at Warrensburg. Well, you probably know Warrensburg. Lair: Yeah, sure. Morris: Being a flatlander yourself, right? Lair: Right. Morris: And then, do you know Richard Perry? Lair: Not very well. Morris: Richard Perry teaches at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg. And he‘s the tuba teacher there, and also the Associate Director of the School of Music. Those two guys, former students of mine from years back. They are the primary authors of this book. On the complete history of the Tennessee Tech Tuba Ensemble, and they‘ve been working on that for about two years now. We‘re pretty close to a publication date on that, and they have literally documented every note that has ever been written for the ensemble. Every original piece. Every transcription the ensemble‘s ever done. Every performance that the ensemble‘s ever presented for forty years. They documented all the, you know, every performance, every single performance, but primarily the, you know, the significant performances. The Carnegie Hall performances, we played at two world‘s fairs, I mean you know, Spoletto Festival in Charleston, the Smithsonian institute in Washington, D.C., the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., the regional, national, and international MENC conferences, ITEA conferences, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Just hundreds and hundreds of performances and hundreds of pieces of music and our twenty-third recording is in the process of being released any time now.

So we‘ve had the history of recording that goes back to 1975, so that‘s over a thirty year history of recording stuff. And the stuff that we recorded, even in 1975, was you know, some significant original pieces and some major transcriptions and arrangements that were being done. So, you know, that sort of gets us up to the mid- seventies where we reached the point where the ensemble was of significant stature both in terms of performance ability and repertoire that you could take a group like this, put them on a stage like Carnegie Recital Hall, and give a viable concert that you could have the most serious reviewer in the world come to a program like that and say, —Well, you know this isn‘t a bunch of buffoons up there on stage. There was nothing funny about it. There was nothing to laugh at. It was drop dead serious stuff. Serious playing.“ And so that was the approach I had for quite a while, and once we had sort of established that, then I allowed things to loosen up a little bit more, so the mid-seventies on after we get, firmly planted our foot in the door of say Knock and say —Hey we‘re serious about this and we‘re capable of playing serious music and being serious about it.“ Then they started moving towards doing more jazz stuff, and we‘ve done since that point about fifty-fifty jazz, fifty-fifty legit., and then we started doing, you know, thanks to a good friend of mine named James Garrett, who his alter ego was on his Pierre Garbage and we did, he started, he was an absolute genius and he wrote these insane monster pieces for us that we would perform all the time. We would usually do at least one Pierre Garbage festival per year on campus. And the difference in what we were doing with the Pierre Garbáge music in the mid-to-late seventies through the eighties into the early nineties, into the mid-nineties, late nineties. The difference in what we were doing with Pierre Garbage and other humorous music that we would do. The difference in that and what was happening at Indiana in the mid-sixties; the difference was that we were not too concerned in the mid-sixties about the performance level of all these German beer drinking songs. We‘d just sort of go out and honk through it and make a bunch of racket. Now Pierre Garbage stuff, the humorous aspect of it was in the music itself, not the way that we performed it, because we were drop dead serious about performing the music to the absolute best of our ability, and then to the extent that the music was a funny arrangement, for example —Sousa Surrenders“, a great arrangement of all these Sousa marches and stuff like that that just modulate from one march to the next with the

accompaniment for a march and the melody to another march, and that‘s just a great piece, a great incredible arrangement. It‘s hilarious, especially if you know Sousa marches, but the humor was not in the fact that we were slopping through the performance, but the humor was in the fact that the arrangement itself was hilarious. So we were serious about performing a fun piece of music. So that was the difference, and that‘s why we, I had to be real careful about this for quite a few years. I had to be sure that when we‘re doing this fun stuff that everybody understood that we were not lowering our performance standards because the music was funny. And I was able to maintain that posture. You know, I had to be real serious about it for a long time to make sure people understood that this is funny stuff, but we‘re going to play the crap out of it. We‘re going to play it right, and it‘s going to be in tune and you know, we take no prisoners for the level of performance that we‘re doing. And we do have a recording now called —Festival of Garbage“, Pierre Garbage music, it‘s one of our CD recordings through Mark Records, and it‘s got all this crazy stuff on there. So mid-seventies on we started to get into the jazz stuff, utilizing rhythm section. We started getting into the humorous stuff, we do real serious large transcriptions such as the Bach —Toccata and Fugue in D minor“ or —Night on Bald Mountain“ or whatever it might be, but the performance standards of all that stuff has to be equivalent to what the original piece would require if it was —Night on Bald Mountain“, then when we would perform it, the arrangement had to be a really good arrangement, not some piece of crap. And our performance of it had to be as serious as if we were sitting in the orchestra playing —Night on Bald Mountain“. And so we were always serious about all this stuff that we did, so we did a lot of major transcriptions, major arrangements, we were doing jazz, we were doing the humorous stuff, we were performing in major venues throughout the country, and knocking recordings out like it‘s going out of style, like I said we had documented twenty-three recordings. Our twenty- third recording is coming out sometime between now and Midwest in December. Of the twenty-three recording that we‘ve done, there are probably available twelve CD‘s currently available and three of those CD‘s are reissues that have happened within the last year of the first thick LP that we ever put out in the early seventies. Seventy-five, seventy-six, seventy-five through 1985 we did six LP recordings, and those six LP recordings are now available on three CD‘s. So when I say we have twelve CD‘s out,

and we‘ve done twenty-three recordings, even though there are twelve CD‘s, those twelve CD‘s constitute about eighteen or nineteen of all the recordings we‘ve ever done that are still available, and some of the other things were different. You know, this documents everything we‘ve ever recorded when I say we‘ve got twenty-three. Any kind of recording, we did some sound, you know what a sound sheet is? Lair: Not really. Morris: The little plastic things that you used to get of a performance. They‘d send you a new band piece. They would have a little black plastic thing you could put on the turntable. You remember turntables, Chris? Lair: Yes I do! I do! Morris: You could take the little black plastic thing and put it on the turntable; put a needle on it, and you could play it. It‘s called sound sheets. And it was a very inexpensive way for publishers to promote, but sometimes they were as flimsy as a piece of paper. Sometimes they were a little bit thicker. And we did a bunch of those. We did some of those with Kendor Publishers, we did Miraphone released a nice little seven inch record at one time. Blah, blah, blah. All those that were included, when I say we did twenty-three, twenty-three recordings of the group had been produced, had been produced in the last, since 1975. So, now you take anything I‘ve just told you, and tell me which aspect of that you want to run with, or what else you want to know. Lair: Actually, you‘ve answered several of my questions at one time. Morris: Uh-huh Lair: So I think I‘m ready to move on to the next subject. Morris: O.K. Lair: Why and how did you and Scott Watson form Symphonia? Morris: Yeah. Previous to Symphonia, the closest thing to a professional level tuba- euphonium ensemble was the armed forces tuba euphonium that always met as part of the Army Conference. If you‘ve gotten your most recent issue of the ITEA Journal, there is a, half of the journal is dedicated to the tuba conference that the U.S. Army Band sponsors every year. They‘re having their twenty-fifth anniversary conference going up this year (2008) and as part of the U.S. Army Conference, which goes back to about 1983 when that started, 1983, 84, 85 I think, I sort of became the conductor of the Armed

Forces Tuba-Euphonium Ensemble in eighty-five, eighty-six. By the third conference they had, they asked me to come up and be the conductor of the U.S. Armed Forces Tuba-Euphonium Ensemble, and what they wanted to do was have just a mass ensemble of all of the military players who were basically in the DC area DC Bands. Of course that was some incredible players, especially that was the best euphonium players in the country. No question about that. I said —Yeah, I‘d love to do that“, but in addition to doing this mass large ensemble, I wanted to do a select group. I wanted to do an ensemble of the principal players of those top six or eight bands in the Washington, D.C. and the D.C. area. So that would include all the usual bands you could think of, plus Annapolis Band, plus the West Point Band. Those guys, it was pretty easy for them to pop down, so I had like six or eight euphoniums and, oh, eight or ten tubas. And it was basically more or less the principal tuba players in those top bands, so we had a select ensemble. And so for about ten years I conducted that group, and I also did the mass ensemble for them which I was happy to do. That select group of, I would take really serious repertoire up there and we‘d rehearse it two or three days and then perform. The group did perform for a Midwest in Chicago; back I think it was eighty-eight or something. I don‘t remember the exact year. And Mark Records did produce a recording of that. That recording, I presume, is still currently available, U.S. Armed Forces tuba euphonium ensemble. Well, we played in Chicago there at the Midwest at the Hotel. So the only professional caliber large tuba euphonium ensemble that existed previous to the existence of Symphonia, and Chris, I don‘t remember the exact year. I can find it somewhere, but I think it was ”92, ”93, ”94. Somewhere in there. Scott and I were guest artists at the Arizona Low Brass Conference; I think they called it in Tucson, Arizona. And there were a couple of graduate students who were teaching at the University of Arizona Tucson at that time because they didn‘t have a full-time tuba teacher. I want to say Steve LaFrenz, I think that was his name and there was somebody else involved. I‘d have to look that name up, but that sounds pretty good. Scott would remember this too. So Scott and I were guest artists out there, and I don‘t know at some point during that conference, either during the conference or I think we ended up on the same airplane flying back from Tucson, probably to O‘Hare. I hopped on another plane to go to Tennessee and he headed back to Lawrence. I don‘t remember where our connections

was, probably maybe St. Louis. I don‘t remember. He and I were on the same flight, so we sat by each other, and I think this was the conversation came up. Well, that, you know, we‘d, he‘d been thinking what would, you know, we‘d had a good time there and when you have these conferences, you put reading groups together of these people, and this had been going on at the national conferences. You know, the international conferences where the, for T.U.B.A. as it was called at that time. We‘d had these national conferences, and then you‘d have like, well somebody would have a reading group, and I did this a bunch of times. I was asked to do it, and we‘d have a reading group, and we‘d have you know these incredible players from all over the world that were there who‘ll come on and sit in. We‘ll put in ninety minutes tomorrow. I brought twenty arrangements with me, and we‘re gonna just read all this stuff. You know, and of course that was a reading group, and these were some of the best players in the world. And we would read through this stuff. And Chris, it always sounded like crap! (laughter) Because even though these were great players, and they were literally reading, and the arrangements were good, and we had good conductors conducting these reading groups, so what‘s the problem here, you got great players, you got good repertoire, you got a great conductor, and you sit there for an hour and a half and you read all these things and it sounds like crap. Well what‘s wrong with this picture? Why‘s this, it just, it would, vault on the fact that even the tuba ensemble is such a difficult group to make it work, to make it sound right, to work out the balance issues, work out the ensemble issues, which great players don‘t do when they‘re sitting there playing because they‘re playing the crap out of their part, and that‘s all you ask out of them. And as a conductor all you on a reading is just conduct through the thing, ”cause everybody‘s sight-reading it. But it was always interesting to me that these incredible reading groups of the best players in the world, that, and this happened at some of the conferences, and at a couple of conferences, this was even played out in public. They would commission a composer to write some piece, and then have the composer come in. They‘d have maybe one rehearsal on it, and then you go out on the steps of the Capitol or you go out on some mall somewhere or you go somewhere else and you present a performance of this, and this happened time after time at these regional and national and international conferences, previous to the early nineties, and it always was an absolute disaster in my opinion, and it

sounded like crap! And this was not helping the image of the tuba and the euphonium with the average person out on the street. Because —Oh, isn‘t that fun. Look at that. Ninety-seven tuba players on the steps of the Capitol. Oh, they‘re getting ready to play. Everybody get their cameras out. Let‘s make a million pictures of this.“ And then they start playing and it sounds like eighteen train wrecks going up at the same time. (laughter) And then after about five minutes, people would start to say —Well isn‘t that cute. Look at all those tuba players up there. And I don‘t know what they‘re doing. They‘re all making some kind of racket. I guess they‘re playing a piece of music. I don‘t know. Well, let‘s go on.“ You know, three minutes later after they‘ve made all the pictures they want to make, they walk off. It‘s visually interesting, and the TV cameras show up, and the news reporters show up and they make pictures of all this. They especially show some kid, you know, with a sousaphone that‘s got a wreath on it or something like that, and, but, it always sounds like crap. It‘s just not well rehearsed, and it‘s not balanced, and it‘s even the best of players, so I think maybe, I mean that was my, that‘s my background and my thinking going in to forming Symphonia, and I think Scott may or may not have felt the same way. I don‘t want to put words in his mouth and I‘m sure you‘re talking to him and interviewing him for part of your project. But so Scott and I had this conversation, I think it was mostly on the plane. We may have even, we may have said something earlier during the week about, —Well, wouldn‘t it be nice to put together a really good serious professional group that would be committed to the group, have established personnel. They would be willing to meet for a couple days and have serious rehearsals and then perform and record.“ And we both agreed —Yeah, this would be great.“ Most of this conversation probably took place on the airplane. I remember at the time that this happened I had two or three, four major projects on my back at that time, and I was kind of tied up with a bunch of other things. I said —Scott, this just sounds great. Let‘s do it, but I can‘t deal with it for another year or so, whatever it was.“ You know what I‘m saying? Lair: Um-Hmm. Morris: And I just said —Let‘s think about this for about another year or whatever. Let me get these other projects.“ I was probably doing the tuba source book. I think I was in the middle of putting the original Tuba Source Book together. This was the waning days

of the Matteson-Phillips Tuba Jazz Consort. I think we had a lot of issues with that group. We were out performing and I don‘t know. I had a lot of loose ends and a lot of other major projects. I felt like —Yeah, this is something I want to do, but the time is not right.“ Well, a year later, I think it was maybe a year or so later that Scott and I got together and said —Well, let‘s do it.“ And we sat down and I think he came down to Tennessee and we sat down over a long weekend, and we just had this whole stock rap. We sat down for hours talking about the personnel that we wanted, and the name of the group, and what the objectives of the group was going to be, we rolled out a whole series of objectives, from commissioning major music, recording major music, publishing major music, doing major performances. And the thinking was that we would use personnel primarily university personnel because of the scheduling conflicts if we used military people. Their schedules would be different than the academic schedule. And also the problems that if we try to use any orchestral personnel because their schedule was different, so I said —Well, due to scheduling, we need to probably stick with people who are involved, who are collegiate tuba and euphonium people that are involved in college campuses across the country“, because their schedules can be very similar, number one, number two these same people are likely, they‘re going to show up for an international tuba conference. These people are going to be there. If they‘re going to be there anyway, well, we‘ll put aside a couple hours every day for two or three days and work up a performance and then we‘ll give a performance. And then, you know, after we work up some serious repertoire we‘ll produce a recording, so that was the initial approach to putting Symphonia together. That was the thinking behind it, and literally a year or two after that, when Scott and I first talked about that, our very first performance was this low brass, Arizona low brass conference. This was only going to happen about two or three or four times. And that was going to happen again, so we approached the people who were organizing that and said —Hey, we want to put this group together. We want this to be the featured group. We go the following people involved.“ And we told everybody involved, of course, they‘re not stupid, so they jumped at that and said, —Well, Hell, yeah, bring ”em on!“ You know, so a year or two after we first talked about it or maybe two years later, and all this is documented somewhere, I mean the exact dates and all that stuff. I just don‘t remember ”em off the top of my head.

The first performance was, and the first time we put the group together was, at, back at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Probably two years after the initial discussion of it. Everybody met, and we had just this great time. We put the group together. We made publicity pictures and the rest is history. We performed at quite a few of the, you know, international and national conferences. We‘ve done three recordings of the group, and the group still exists right now. I don‘t know if its run its course or not. I don‘t necessarily think that it has. The last performance we did was I guess Greensboro. The International Tuba Conference in Greensboro. What was that, about four years ago? Lair: About that, I think, yeah. Morris: I don‘t know that we‘ve performed with Symphonia since then. We would have some personnel issues. If we needed to perform right now, we would have some personnel issues. There are people who were in the original group that have moved on in life. Some have retired. I don‘t know if we‘ve had anybody die on us yet, but we would probably have to reconstitute the group to some extent, you know. It was a pretty well set personnel. We had a couple of; we had about a half dozen or so over the five, six, seven, eight years that the group was pretty active. We added, there was some of the, there were a few people that found it increasingly difficult to be available to do this recording or this performance. And we would go out and recruit a newer person to come sit in with us and do that. We always had great people involved in that. So this was, you know, a professional, large ensemble, and one did not exist previous to that. The Tokyo Bari-Tuba Ensemble would be the closest thing that had existed previous to that, and that was obviously in Tokyo, and that was Toru Miura. T-O-R-U M-I-U-R-A, Toru Miura. Great Japanese euphonium player who is a euphoniumist with the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra up until recently. He retired about a year ago from that. He ran this Tokyo Bari-Tuba Ensemble, and those are professional players and they are wonderful players and they did some stuff in Tokyo. I don‘t know if they ever produced a recording. Someone told me that they did. I‘m not aware of it, but someone said that they did do a recording of some kind, which I don‘t know why I‘ve not been able to get that. Toru‘s a very good friend of mine, but at any rate that group didn‘t last very long. They were around for a couple of years and then it sort of went away. So that was an early attempt

at a professional group and then Symphonia was going on about that same time. So that was the thinking and organizational factors behind Symphonia. Does that sort of answer what you wanted to know Chris? Lair: It does. One other question about Symphonia. Can you describe your impression of the reception the group‘s received by the public over the years? Morris: Well, I mean, you know, it was extremely well received. I was never aware of anything other than the most positive reaction that the group generally got. Of course I was prejudiced as hell about it. I was, you know, one of the founders of it, and a co- artistic director of the group with Scott. And did most, you know, I did the majority of the conducting. I always share the conducting duties. Scott would always do a tune or two and, you know, if you got John Stevens in the group it‘s stupid not to take advantage of him and let him do something and from time to time somebody would write a special arrangement. Neal Corwell or Jeff Funderburk or somebody like that, they would write a special arrangement for the group, so we let them conduct it, you know, cause it was their piece, but I‘d say ninety percent of the time I was the conductor of the group, so like I said I‘m obviously prejudiced about it. I thought it was a great group. We had great repertoire. I was never aware of anything other than the absolute most positive reception that we ever received. And we were playing for the choir. The performances, with just a couple exceptions, Symphonia was performing for, if not exclusively a house full of tuba and euphonium players, who if they didn‘t like this they needed to go find another life of some kind. (laughter) If not specifically for tuba and euphonium players, then at least for other musicians, like at the Army Conference. At the Army Conference, it‘d be a mixture of mostly tuba and euphonium players, and some general public. But we did the Danville Brass Band Festival. I‘m trying to think of some of the other non-tuba things that we did, so you know, most of the time we were performing for tuba and euphonium players. We probably could have walked out there, and because that was a great bunch of players and they were all popular players, and they all had their fans, we could have probably walked out there and exploded and everybody would have just said —Oh isn‘t that wonderful!“ because everybody thought the people in there were terrific people. But, you know, the group always sounded great. I rehearsed their asses off. You can ask anybody that was in there. (laughter)

Lair: I‘m sure! Morris: I don‘t take prisoners with this kind of stuff. And the reason, Chris, is because of what I told you. Very few of my colleagues understand this, and this is something I‘ve never publicly stated before. I mean I‘ve talked about it with a few individuals and I don‘t have any particular reason for not publicly stating it because I don‘t care if anyone disagrees with me because I know what the hell I‘m talking about. The issue that I was telling you earlier, that all these earlier reading groups that you could throw stuff together would go out and sound like crap. I have always been determined that will never happen with any group that I‘m involved with. It just simply won‘t happen. We will do whatever it takes. If that means I‘ve got to have rehearsals ”til midnight or two o‘clock in the morning, if I‘ve got to have eight hours of rehearsals, I don‘t care what it takes. We‘re not going to go out, any group that I‘m involved with is not going to go out and do a performance that‘s anything less than the absolute best that that group is capable of doing. And I will demand to have whatever kind of rehearsals I have to have. And as we sit here today in 2007, I can tell you in all honesty that there are a lot of people out there that don‘t understand what I just told you. They just don‘t understand it. They think —Well this is bullshit!“ These are great players. Surely we don‘t need eight hours of rehearsal on this. Let‘s read it through one time, and then go out and play it, and I can guarantee you right now it will sound like crap! And you can quote me on that, O.K.? (laughter) Lair: O.K.! Morris: Last year out in Denver, I did a big euphonium choir, and I recruited about eighteen of the finest euphonium players that this country has to offer. And I told all these people up front, I said this is going to be just euphoniums, no tubas. They call it Euphoniums Unlimited, which is something I‘ve been doing for the last three or four years now. I‘ve done a recording with the group, all euphoniums, I‘m trying to really promote the euphonium here, just in addition to the new tuba source book, which just came out, by the way if you‘re not familiar with that, it‘s finally available. We‘ve got a euphonium source book out. It took me ten years to get all these euphonium players to get their act together, and I kept pushing them and cracking whips and yelling and screaming at enough people the last fifteen years, so now we‘ve got a euphonium source

book out there. But I decided a couple years ago, just a personal decision that I made about five years ago that I wanted to at least for a while there, and I haven‘t necessarily been through that whole process, but for a while there I wanted to do some things to really promote the euphonium because it needs some serious promotion. And I decided I wanted to do that, and one thing was we were going to get the euphonium source book done. Another was we were going to form a group called Euphoniums Unlimited and I put that group together. I went out and commissioned nine or ten pieces for that. We did a recording up in New York about three summers ago, and then Kathy Brannigan invited the group to perform in Denver last year, so I recruited eighteen of about the best euphonium players that this country has to offer. Mostly younger players, Chris, I mean I didn‘t have, you know, Brian appeared as soloist with the group. He wasn‘t in the group, for example, and I had Adam Frey appear as a soloist with the group, etcetera, etcetera. But most of these, you now, and some of these were the top military players too from the Marine Band the Air Force Band, etcetera. I had quite a few military guys in there. I mean if you‘re going to put a euphonium group together you have to have military people in there, because that‘s where the best euphonium players are, but my point in telling you about all this is that we met in Denver last year and I had two or three or four new pieces I came up with. I had some other repertoire. I had about a, they wanted a ninety-minute program out of the group. We didn‘t really have to have ninety-minutes of music, but we had a ninety-minute slot on the evening slot. I scheduled rehearsals like crazy, and I know I drove these people crazy. They never, I don‘t think they‘d ever been rehearsed like that. At least that‘s the way they acted like, some of them, you know they were not. They just didn‘t understand all the rehearsing that I was making them do. I think they thought when they signed on to this, well we‘d go out there and we‘d have one or two rehearsals and just read through these pieces, and these are wonderful players, these are good arrangements. We‘ll go out and perform it. And that‘s just not the way I do things. This is going to be drop dead no chances taken ready to go nailing it to the wall. And just a year later I just go the recording of that live performance that Kathy Brannigan sent me literally about two or three weeks ago. A year later I got the recording. It‘s incredible! Most of the stuff on that live performance could be released as a recording. Now, you know, a euphonium choir recording. But that‘s the approach that I‘ve taken, and that‘s

the approach when we formed Symphonia. Symphonia was to counteract, in my mind, the haphazard sloppy way a lot of the large ensemble stuff had been presented in public over the years. By having reading groups and groups that just throw stuff together, and they go out in public, and sound like crap. And then this was not pointing any fingers. I‘m not blaming anybody. All of us are part of it. I was part of it, because I did actually conduct these groups sometimes. And I just, I won‘t do it any more. I just got to the point after a while, I will not just go out, and well I‘ll do a reading ensemble for the sake of everybody reading something, but that‘s not a performance. You know but what happens is that a lot of the people get out then, and they‘ll have these reading ensembles and say —Well, we‘re going to do this reading group. Let‘s take this down on the mall, and let everyone, you know, after the shopping mall, or you know whatever we‘re going to do“. And the next thing you know you‘ve got public listening to this. Well they don‘t know that you‘ve not rehearsed all this stuff. They assume that you‘re, you know, and then it sounds like crap, and when people do that, you know, then go back to my early statements to you. That‘s just perpetuating these negative stereotypes of the tuba in the public‘s mind. And then when you want an Oystein Baadsvik to come around and do a tuba recital, and you advertise that in your community, and their experience with the tuba has been that they heard one of these mass explosions somewhere. They have no motivation to go out and buy a fifteen dollar ticket to go hear Oystein Baadsvik play a recital. What the hell is this guy going to sound like? Remember when we heard all those tubas at the tuba conference two years ago? Or when we walked by the steps of the Capitol and saw eight hundred tubas out there blowing up? I‘m going to spend fifteen bucks going to hear one tuba player making that kind of racket? Forget it! You see what I‘m saying? Lair: Sure do. Morris: Yeah, that was my, that‘s been my philosophy and approach to everything, and Symphonia was formed, in my mind, this is not necessarily something that is a matter of, well I don‘t know. I probably discussed this with Scott. Scott and I pretty well talk about everything. Very good friends. I think the world of him. He just came through a couple weeks ago on his way back from Brevard, he and Mary, and their mutts! (laughter)

They‘ve got these mangy mutts they raised with them all the time. They love them like kids, don‘t they? Lair: They do! Morris: At any rate, Scott and I probably discussed that, but that was one of my major motivations for wanting a group like Symphonia. They would be a professional group, and when they went out in public, it would be a well rehearsed performance, and it would be nailed to the wall. There wouldn‘t be any doubt about the quality of what we‘re doing here. Well that‘s a pretty long answer to what is the thinking behind Symphonia, I guess. Lair: That‘s perfect. This stuff is just gold. Lair: Do you feel that professional tuba-euphonium ensembles are important to the development and continuity of the instrument? Morris: Well I do. Now, when we talking about professional tuba-euphonium ensembles you realize that we‘re talking about thirty, forty, fifty, professional tuba-euphonium quartets that exist throughout the world. Lair: Yes Morris: And I‘ve got all my and my studio‘s too. I‘ve got probably about I don‘t know forty, fifty, sixty quartet recordings, and they‘ve been produced by various quartets around the world. Because there‘s no other large groups that are going that I‘m aware of. The Tokyo Bari-Tuba group only lasted for a while. And Symphonia to the extent that it still does exist, but it has three recordings. I‘m not aware of any other large groups, are you? Lair: Well, not really, no. Morris: Yeah, and then the U.S. Armed Forces group, which meets once a year, and now they perform only at the Army Conference. When I was doing it, we went down to the Pentagon. We went to the Smithsonian Institute. We went around marching and performing for people the armed forces group. We would play to the Midwest Convention. In recent years, and John Stevens has done it mostly. I quit doing it mid- early nineties. Because Steven Mead wanted to start doing a British tuba conference, and he invited me over for about two or three years in a row to help plant the seed for that, and to go around doing some reading ensembles, and stuff like that. And this, he would always take his at the exact same time as the Army Conference. So I told the Army guys,

I said —Man I‘ve done this for ten years. I love you guys, and I will do it forever, but Steven Mead wants to get something going over in England for Europe, and I‘m desperate to get these guys going, cause they need to be doing some stuff over there. And as a result of that the British Tuba Quartet was formed with Steven Mead and some of his people. They‘ve got four or five recordings out. Are you familiar with a group called —Tubalate“? Lair: Vaguely, uh-huh, yeah. Morris: Yeah. They‘re a terrific quartet that‘s still very active in England. They‘ve got about five recordings down there. They were formed on my first trip over there when I did some reading sessions. Those guys were students at the Royal Northern College. I did reading sessions there. And that‘s when they got motivated to form their quartet, was because of the work that I was doing over there with them. They‘ve told me that. So it‘s called Tubalate and you know, you got quartets, man, you got quartets all over the Scandinavian countries, the military bands here form time to time have quartets. They pretty well keep them going. I know that they, I think the Navy Band‘s cranked back up with their quartet. They had a great quartet for many years. I think the Army Band‘s got a quartet. The West Point Band has a quartet. Most of the military bands have quartets, and a lot of the regional military bands have quartets. And then there were, I remember Scott, Skip Gray, Jerry Young, and who else had a quartet? Who else would have been in there? Lair: I don‘t remember. Morris: Yeah, that goes back to early nineties, ninety, ninety-one, ninety-two. Lair: Was Jeff Funderburk in that group? Morris: Yeah, Jeff was in that group. Absolutely! Lair: Yeah. Morris: Jeff Funderburk. So it was Scott, Jeff, Skip, and Jerry Young. I think that was the four. They had a quartet going for a while, and there was a group down there at Alabama. Mike Dunn was down there. They had a quartet going. You know, they‘re all over the country. And there‘s thirty, forty, fifty professional quartet recordings that are out there. And they‘re all excellent. They just sound terrific. I know there‘s one or two quartets in Japan now. Well they‘re just all over the, Switzerland there‘s a great one in

Switzerland. They‘re all over the world. They‘re everywhere! Everywhere you go, and they‘re sounding great. I think it‘s terrific, and obviously of course it‘s a lot easier to have a tuba-euphonium quartet than it is to have a large ensemble. You only got four people. And there are tons of repertoire, just hundreds and hundreds of quartet pieces out there. Original compositions and transcriptions and arrangements. So there‘s enough repertoire to justify the existence of these quartets. I don‘t remember the specifics of your question, but I think it‘s a great thing. I think they contribute, these quartets, these professional quartets around the world make a major contribution to continuing to enhance the image of the tuba and the euphonium in the eyes of the general public.

APPENDIX 2 ORAL INTERVIEW WITH SCOTT WATSON, 2 AUGUST, 2007

Lair: O.K. Scott, can you hear me? Watson: Yeah. I am fine. Lair: Alright. Off we go then. Can you describe the cultural and professional climate related to tuba ensembles in the last three decades? Watson: We‘re starting in the 1970‘s, correct? Lair: Yeah. Watson: Well, there weren‘t very many professionals in terms of ensembles except with perhaps some quartets, which were generally associated with the military at that time. I‘m thinking like for instance the Coast Guard quartet and the perhaps Navy quartet out of Washington at that time. The large tuba ensemble things that were available in most of the seventies, particularly in the first half generally were of low quality. I remember playing some of those things at the Conservatory in Cincinnati. Most of the time they were done by tuba players who weren‘t professional composers or arrangers and many times, you know, they sounded amateurish, frankly. You know, they just weren‘t as good as, you know, we‘re accustomed to because in those days people didn‘t know some of the rules yet in terms of how to write for the horn without, especially an ensemble, without making it sound too heavy or too dense of a texture. And that started changing in the second half of the seventies primarily due to Winston Morris‘ work with Tennessee Tech Tuba Ensemble and his commissioning efforts. Some of the earlier pieces that he commissioned by folks like Commer Bijong and Arthur Frackenpohl, Walter Ross, James Brought. Those kinds of pieces come to mind and those really started to show what the ensemble as a genre could do. So I would think that would be the seventies for you. And the eighties, you really, it was the first decade that you saw a really good amount of steady pieces in terms of development of the repertoire for a large ensemble and quartet. I think that‘s where you see some of your really some of your really great pieces, you know, the Dan Welcher piece Hauntings some pieces that were particularly commissioned by Tennessee Tech and also by T.U.B.A. at the time which is now called I.T.E.A. but at the time was T.U.B.A. and they particularly commissioned works for their

conferences. They were for all their college All-Star ensembles and high school All-Star ensembles at those conferences. And each one of those groups would get a commission, and that really added to the repertoire and more often than not those pieces were quite good. And then that was also during the eighties, that I think you saw, the rise of the college ensembles in terms of the tuba-euphonium ensemble at different universities becoming a common occurrence and a serious occurrence at some schools. And I guess then the nineties were, you probably could say that those were the whole situation with the professional ensembles. Quartets and groups like Symphonia were first created. Particularly tuba quartets were developed. Sotto Voce started, Tubalate, and Iman. Ever heard œ shouldn‘t forget, actually, back in the 1970‘s there was the New York Tuba Quartet which may have kind of started everything. That group wasn‘t long lived, but it was very important in terms of showing what people could do and they performed a great deal back in the seventies, part of the early eighties. But with the nineties you really saw many more professional tuba quartets rising and the quartet became a very common thing on the college campus as well. It also started seeing a great deal of more publishing because with the invention of the laser printer it became able and Finale it became possible for every single person to become a basement publishing operation so you saw a lot of new publishing outfits that were catering particularly starting in the 1990‘s to tuba-euphonium music. That was a big change. Lair: Yeah, that‘s a good point. Do you think that in the nineties, then, that the tuba- euphonium ensemble was accepted as a more serious artistic group? Watson: I think that‘s a yes and no answer. I think, certainly by serious brass players you could say so. Particularly ones that have heard really fine college ensembles like Tennessee Tech and others and you know people who have heard Symphonia either live or on the recordings, but I think that still the public, you know the general audience public, by and large didn‘t really know that that still existed even, you know, even in the nineties and maybe even to this day. It‘s hard for a tuba-euphonium ensemble, even a great one, particularly a large ensemble to kind of break into that because it‘s outside of the normal parameters of what is considered you know a large ensemble of whatever type of instruments that craft music or chamber music, even though I think the quartet certainly has a better chance of breaking in because there is a somewhat of a track record

of quartets of other instruments whether it is string quartets, trombone quartets, horn quartets, and that things of making that a success in that genre. It‘s also cheaper to put a quartet on the road. Sometimes financial things figure in to these acceptances or non- acceptances whatever the case may be. Lair: O.K. That‘s great. Thank you very much. Why did you form the KU Tuba- Euphonium Consort? Well, let me ask you three questions all at once, because your answer is probably going to cover them all. Why did you form the consort? What has been your overriding philosophy for the group, and did you have any special influences? Watson: Sure, sure. Well, in terms of the answer to why it was established is it was actually more educational than practical. It is that when I arrived at KU in the fall of 1979, there had already been a quartet here that was still going on that was actually students that was quite active and very dedicated and I wanted to expand that type of level of activity to the entire studio and so I started that ensemble as a way of doing that and also challenging the students to perform music that was more difficult and that featured the instruments. And then the second half of that it was really I was also trying to make the studio here you know seem to be a very exciting and happening type of place and having that tuba-euphonium ensemble was really made that happen. Primarily it was certainly an educational tool. Number one it was just being able to work with my students in that type of ensemble situation to be able to kind of pass along and reinforce the concepts that were being made in the studio in that ensemble situation. O.K. then, overriding philosophy of the group I mean really I think it‘s been for me has been to try to perform at the highest level. Serious, challenging music. I mean it‘s been a vehicle for trying to really get my students to play at the highest level in that ensemble. So that would be my overriding philosophy. It‘s not that high-fallootin‘ but I think that‘s practically what it is. Influences, it‘s got to be Winston Morris, especially when I got started. I mean I bombarded that Tennessee Tech library and just you know copied what they were doing, because they were the best example of a college ensemble. I really looked at what Winston was doing at Tennessee Tech and tried to make our ensemble to be as good as that as much as possible and to not be afraid, for instance, to perform really serious music. Of course we did lighter stuff as well, as you know, but we would always be tackling some kind of serious piece or pieces at the same time. So, I mean he‘s

definitely my influence so I mean if there‘s more influence, too, it was definitely hearing when I was a student, a senior at the Cincinnati Conservatory hearing New York Tuba Quartet play a concert in Cincinnati. And that really excited me about, you know, the whole idea of, you know, an ensemble, whether chamber music or large ensemble or whatever doing that and also as part of that was friends with Mike Thornton who still is the tubist in Cincinnati Symphony and Mike was especially a great transcriber of early music and so he was doing that, and he gave me all these arrangements, so I, you know, was playing a lot of those things and Mike was always trying out new stuff and that also was another part of it was, you know, can‘t tubists play Renaissance music and Baroque music and still play at a very high level like a string player would or an early music consort would. Lair: Great. Do you feel that tuba ensembles are important in the university curriculum? Watson: Yeah, I think that it has an important place. I think that there are certain skills, particularly for tuba players that you just get in tuba ensemble that you‘re not going to get in orchestra or wind band, just because you are not used to playing interior parts. I think there‘s just a real skill of tuning those types of chords and things that makes you a better musician and a better player. I know for instance, having done that has made my brass quintet playing and makes my students play better in chamber music settings that they play in an ensemble. If they are euphonium players, boy you know tuba-euphonium ensemble pieces are really killer on euphonium, especially if you are playing on the first part. And so it‘s a real challenge, even a bigger challenge than they get in a wind band, which they do get some considerable things there that are quality, but boy in the ensemble and you know, you‘re like the first trumpet or the concert meister. It‘s really, really difficult parts most of the time and particularly high and you know so it‘s definitely a challenge for euphonium players as well. So I think it has a real place for a lot of different reasons and one of the, you know, things that maybe often is overlooked, too is that to kind of paraphrase what Vincent Persichetti told Harvey Phillips at Julliard when he was a student there is that if we‘re not going to be champions of music, chamber music, ensemble music of our own genre, who else will?

Lair: Great. O.K. Moving on to a totally different subject. Why and how did you and Winston Morris decide to form Symphonia? Watson: Inebriation! (laughter) No. Well, let me tell you the story and then I‘ll tell the reason why. O.K. Winston and I were both guest artists on one of those Arizona low brass symposiums. I think it was the one in 1993 that was the first one. I think I‘m getting the year right. I could be off by one year, but I think I‘m right. And I wanted to do something with Winston because I had never really worked with him, and I was thinking, you know, what kinds of things are really needed, and the thing that had percolated this whole thing is that back about during that time during the summers at Interlochen. Those were the years that Jerry Young was the tuba-euphonium teacher at Interlochen, which was during the eighties and nineties. Is that he would host the T.U.B.A. executive committee at Interlochen so we could have this week long of meetings, and as part of that we would form an All-Star ensemble and perform a concert of tuba-euphonium ensemble music and we were always gassed out about how really good it sounded. I mean there were some really great players in that group that were officers at the time. You know, there was Sam Pilafian, there was Don Little, there was Skip Gray. I mean there was Brian Bowman on euphonium, I mean —Who‘s Who“! John Stevens, I mean blah, blah, blah, and so we had just a grand time doing those concerts and so I‘m saying you know people don‘t hear ensembles, tuba-euphonium ensembles performed by professionals, you know. And I was talking to Winston, and literally the only time we could seriously talk because we had been so busy was on the airport shuttle going back to the Tucson airport, and I said —You know, people need to hear what this music sounds like if played by absolutely the top players of the instrument and it would be great the too we could get recordings. I know, you know, that your group is sounding great at Tennessee Tech and all these things but I mean to hear them played by the absolute top notch players.“ And Winston goes —You‘re absolutely right. We should do something about that.“ And so I went out to Cookeville the following summer, so that would be I‘m assuming, I think, the summer of 1993, and we tried to, you know, come up with ideas of what we‘d play and who would be in the group and all, those kinds of things, and so that‘s really how it got started. The idea was, you know, what can we do to, you know, have people hear this music that a lot of people don‘t even know what it

sounds like. What would it be if you had the top players on the instrument playing it in a large tuba ensemble, and so let‘s arrange a recording, so he said that Winston had a long standing relationship with Mark Records and they said —Yeah, we‘ll sign off on the project“ and so we immediately had a reason to do it and we got together for our first album. I think it was a year later in 1994 at the University of Northern Illinois and we did also an appearance at the Midwestern Band and Orchestra Clinic right after we recorded that album, and that‘s how we got started. Lair: Can you describe what you think the reception of Symphonia has received by the public over the years? Watson: Well, particularly at the live performances were always very, very positive. I remember us playing at the Great American Brass Band Festival, which is an annual event in Danville, KY and we have, gosh anywhere from 6 to 10,000 people listening to those concerts and they just loved it. I mean and so we kind of proved that a public audience would enjoy hearing that type of group. And they didn‘t care that it was tuba- euphonium or that it wasn‘t a wind band or wasn‘t a typical brass band. They just took to the fact that it was great brass playing. And so I think that a lot of people also including critics and I know NPR and some things that have also played some cuts of our albums and the feedback is always very, very positive. So I‘d say the public, as much as those that are in the know, once they‘ve heard it have always been extremely impressed, if not gassed out. Lair: O.K. Last question on this topic. Do you feel that professional tuba-euphonium ensembles and quartets also are important to the development and continuity of the instrument? Watson: I think they‘re essential in terms of you have to have as many opportunities for different types of playing as possible, but I think it‘s important in terms of continuity of the instrument is, you know, if you think about most instruments have something that is for the instrument in an ensemble fashion. Of course strings have the orchestra and the string quartet, but you think about the ”cellos, you know, you think about the Bachianas Brasileiras number 5 by Villa Lobos that‘s for all ”cellos. You think about these types of pieces, you think about Fantasiestücke by Schumann for four horns. You know, there‘s always an example for most instuments, and you know trombone, the Equali by

Beethoven. It‘s three or four. I think it‘s Equali by Beethoven. You know, those types of pieces that show, you know, what the instrument can do and homogenized a like kind of sound, whether it‘s all trumpets, all trombones, or whatever, so our reason for playing together is just as valid. So I think the continuity of the instrument and the importance I think it‘s definitely important. I still believe that the quartet, if anything, is probably going to be the group, the kind of group, that will gain, particularly acceptance, and I really believe that not so much because it‘s more superior or anything, but one it‘s more cost effective and two particularly the sheer virtuosity of the group can always transplant and supersede people‘s prejudice about what the instrumentation are. I think there are some great groups out there that are going to do that. The playing is just so good it doesn‘t matter if they were playing four kazoos. Lair: Great. Well, you can‘t really talk about the history of tuba-euphonium ensembles without talking about Tuba Christmas, so how was your approach to tuba-euphonium ensembles effected by Tuba Christmas, or was it at all, when Tuba Christmas got started? Watson: I can‘t say that there was a real, I always thought of Tuba Christmas particularly being a great P.R. project that has done considerable good for the instrument. Of course you have to thank Harvey Phillips for that. I mean it‘s his creative genius that did that. I just think that generally I think that is a real publicity thing for the instrument. Here‘s a large group playing Christmas carols, you know, and just kind of making this festive statement about for the holiday season that just simply says here‘s what they can do and I‘m sure Harvey‘s thinking is OK, now you‘ve seen that you‘re less likely to say —Oh, a tuba recital or a euphonium recital, oh I don‘t want to go hear that.“ You might say —Well, I heard those tubas out in Rockefeller Center. I‘ll probably go hear that.“ But in terms of influencing much that in terms of the fact of using of course using those wonderful arrangements, you know, during the holidays, because you know, I mean Gosh! ……….I drew a blank. I can‘t think of the composer. Effie, Wilder! Wilder‘s arrangements are fantastic, so that would be the influence, if anything would just be the simple arrangements. Lair: O.K. This last little bit might be a little bit redundant, but tuba-euphonium quartets, particularly professional tuba-euphonium quartets, as you mentioned earlier,

started to be successful in the seventies and really evolved. What have you witnessed in the evolution of the tuba-euphonium quartet as a group, and do you think they will have a place as a chamber ensemble for decades or millennia to come? Watson: Well, it‘s hard to say, like I said before, I think someone‘s virtuosity can transcend instrumentation. You know, a regular group, yeah I think it can be this continued kind of very, where it‘s certainly looked at as being —Oh, tuba quartets, yeah tuba quartets, that‘s a fairly common ensemble.“ You know, I don‘t think it‘s ever going to replace the, you know, or be on equal footing with the string quartet or something of that nature, but certainly it‘s got the ability to transcend things. The main difference that you see now, too, particularly in recent things, is just the chance, and also really shows the development of the use of high horns. And you may look elsewhere, but particularly in America, you know, you‘re seeing the use of the tuba with a contrabass tuba, you know a tuba in C generally, and along with a tuba in E-flat or F and those kinds of things along with, of course, the two euphoniums being standard and then you even see some where they‘ve changed the instrumentation where people will double on instruments, you know, you can play all four euphoniums on a piece, or they‘ll play three euphoniums and one tuba, three tubas and one euphonium, I mean you see a lot of different things like that. You know, even four tubas. There was a Hungarian group that won the quartet competition in Budapest three or four years ago that was all four tubas. You know, it was just great playing. I think, you know, it really kind of shows how this use of the F and the E-flat tuba that has become so popular and common here in the United States and of course even abroad. I mean, you know, F tubas have always been heavily used, of course, in Europe and the E-flat heavily used in the United Kingdom and Canada and also New Zealand. Anywhere there has been a British influence, and now you see people playing both. You know, you see E-flats in the United States, you see F‘s and you know the tuba quartet is very common and it sounds good to have that variation of sound just a little bit, you know, there so you can tell all four parts separately. It blends well still, but you can tell that there is, you know, the C tuba adds a little breadth to the sound and the E-flat or F is a little lighter sound, and then you have the euphoniums, and so I can see that that is kind of the nearest development, I think, and it‘s maturation the quartet. Lair: O.K. Well, that‘ll do it. Thank you very, very much.

APPENDIX 3 WRITTEN INTERVIEW WITH HARVEY PHILLIPS, 12 JANUARY, 2008

Lair: Can you describe the cultural and professional climate related to tuba ensembles in the 1970‘s? Phillips: Tuba Ensembles well established at University of Miami (Constance Weldon). Tennessee Tech Tuba Ensemble (Winston Morris). Indiana University (William Bell) 1961-1971 - Harvey Phillips 1971-1994 - Daniel Perantoni 1994-Present. Lair: 1980‘s? Phillips: Previous listing and add North Texas (Don Little). University of Texas (Steve Bryant). Many, many others, too numerous to list. Research not at my fingertips, perhaps you should make contact with ITEA listings. Lair: 1990‘s? Phillips: Dido above Lair: 2000‘s? Phillips: Dido above Lair: Why did you form the Mattison-Phillips Tuba Jazz Consort? Phillips: The potential was too good to look the other way. The Euphonium and Tuba have definite places to fill in the curriculum of college‘s and the professional stage. Rich Matteson and I have long been close friends and I conceived the Matteson-Phillips Tuba Jazz Consort as a means of expressing the need for more hope in mind and established a variety, quote: —Music is one language with many dialects, if you want to play a variety of roles it‘s up to you to see that it happens.“ Rich and I with the assistance of Ashley Alexander, Buddy Baker, John Allred, Dan Perantoni, Winston Morris. Guitar: Jack Peterson. Drums: Louis Bellson, Rufus Reed, (other outstanding players). Piano: Tommy Ferguson, Dan Haerle, Roger Kelloway, (few others). Lair: Did you have any special influences? Phillips: Yes, we were all influenced by outstanding professional artists who were appreciative of the ONLY American music...JAZZ. Lair: How and why did the recording projects start? Phillips: Can‘t keep a good thing under a basket. Music needs to be shared.

Lair: Do you feel tuba ensembles are important in the university curriculum? Why? Phillips: Definitely. All styles of music belong to all instruments and from a professional view point we refuse to relinquish even one polka gig, dixieland gig, jazz gig, symphony or otherwise gig to other instruments. Quote: —The worst response to an offer to make music is, —Gee, I don‘t play that kind of music.“ Lair: Do you feel professional tuba-euphonium ensembles are important to the development and continuity of the instrument? Why? Phillips: Same reason we feed on any other kind of music. Lair: How and why did you start Tuba Christmas? Phillips: I wanted an event that would honor all players and teachers who preceded us. Most especially William J. Bell, born Christmas Day, 1902. He and the others to whom we owe so much earned all the accolades that can be heaped upon them. Lair: Tuba Christmas has become a stable tradition in the United States. Do you feel this tradition is important in establishing the Tuba Ensemble in mainstream culture, or has it hindered the public view of the ensemble? Phillips: Tuba Christmas has been heard by thousands who otherwise might never have seen or heard these instruments at one of the most important times of the year to reach their appreciation. No tuba player is turned away and the age span (so far) is 9 to 98 years old. Lair: Can you describe their reception by the public in the beginning? Phillips: Curious and astounded. Lair: How about Octubafest? Phillips: Octubafest was conceived initially (at Indiana University) as a series of concerts acquainting the new crop of tuba students and the returning upper-class men and doctoral candidates, followed by an Octubafeast in the typical style of the German Oktoberfest. Lair: Are these traditions important to the continuity of the instrument? Phillips: The answer to this is too obvious to mention. Lair: Tuba-Euphonium Quartets began to see success in the 1970‘s as professional groups. What have you witnessed in the evolution of these groups over the decades? Phillips: Profound growth and flexibility accessing variety...the spice of life. Lair: Do you think they will eventually have a place as a traditional chamber ensemble?

Phillips: I predict the Euphonium-Tuba Quartet exhibiting the wealth of musical styles and showing some concern for their continuous enlightenment and entertainment value to audiences that show their appreciation by buying tickets will someday be as popular as the Brass Quintet.

APPENDIX 4 WRITTEN INTERVIEW WITH DR. JERRY YOUNG, 30 JANUARY, 2008

Lair: Can you describe the history and climate related to tuba ensembles in the 1960‘s? Young: To the best of my knowledge, there was no history or climate until the pioneering work of Connie Weldon and R. Winston Morris, save the efforts of Gerard Hoffnung in the 1950s. At this point in time, the medium was really still novelty œ important foundations were being laid in Miami and Cookeville. Lair: 1970‘s? Young: Still developing, although the influence of Weldon and Morris was starting to spread, particularly, I think, after 1975. The idea of the musical viability of euphonium- tuba ensembles was recognized by more of the —major“ teachers and institutions, and a few composers started to take us seriously. Groups like the Tokyo Bari-Tuba Ensemble (organized by Toru Miura) started to spring up in venues outside the U.S. The Matteson- Phillips Tubajazz Consort was an important development in the late 1970s. I believe that this group may be the first really professional euphonium-tuba group in any idiom. The founding of Tuba Christmas by Harvey Phillips gave wide visibility to the euph-tuba ensemble concept. The New York Tuba Quartet made a recording that created a lot of excitement, as well. Howard Johnson‘s group, —Substructure“ (later morphing into another Johnson-led group, —Gravity,“ also comes on the scene in New York and performs on —Saturday Night Live.“

Lair: 1980‘s? Young: By the 1980s, most serious university studios had some kind of euphonium-tuba ensemble offering, either for credit or ad hoc in nature. Major composers such as Fisher Tull, Claude Smith, and others began to write for the euphonium-tuba ensemble. Part of the activities at most music camps (including famous ones, such as the National Music Camp at Interlochen) included euphonium-tuba ensemble. Every ITEC included some kind of —all star“ euphonium-tuba ensemble beginning in this decade. Several professional euphonium-tuba quartets were founded during the 1980s, both in the U.S.

military bands and by civilian groups in the U.S. and abroad. The Monarch Tuba Quartet, the British Tuba Quartet, and the Melton Tuba Quartet were all started in this time period. I believe that only the Melton Quartet is still in existence. The annual presentation of the Armed Forces Euphonium-Tuba Ensemble at the U.S. Army Band International Tuba-Euphonium Conference began during this decade and remains important. Lair: 1990‘s? Young: The movement of the 1980s continued to go forward. Symphonia was founded in the early part of the decade by Winston Morris and Scott Watson and three compact disc recordings were produced by that group. More and better compositions were forthcoming; ITEA introduced a euphonium-tuba quartet competition as part of the bi- annual ITEC conferences. Lair: 2000‘s? Young: Still more professional quality groups…. Tubalate (Britain), Sotto Voce (U.S.), Junction (U.S.), Four Star Brass (U.S.), a French quartet whose name I can‘t remember, and likely more that I can‘t remember. All of these groups generated a lot of significant repertoire. Young groups like —Tubaqvartteten“ from Vesty, Norway have sprung up and continue to break new ground. The Modern Jazz Tuba Project, a sort of successor to the Matteson-Phillips group, is enjoying good success. Jon Sass organized a group early in the decade called —Heavy Tubas“ in Europe, expanding on the Matteson-Phillips idea and exploring more progressive jazz/creative idioms. Lair: Why did you form the Tuba-Euphonium Ensemble with your studio? Young: I started my ensemble to give my students the opportunity (primarily) to perform repertoire from a variety of style periods and to give them the opportunity to gain conducting and rehearsal skills in a hands-on setting. We have always done original works for the medium, as well, but the primary purpose is to gain experience with repertoire that they would not ordinarily experience from baroque/classic/romantic eras. Lair: What has been your overriding philosophy for the group? Young: I place educational experience over perfection. Our purpose for existence is to provide meaningful educational opportunities that will have a positive impact on the students‘ professional preparation.

Lair: Did you have any special influences? Young: Dan Perantoni introduced me to the euphonium-tuba ensemble concept and brought Winston Morris in to work with our ensemble at the University of Illinois. The two of them and Harvey Phillips are my primary influences in this part of my teaching. Lair: Do you feel tuba ensembles are important in the university curriculum? Why? Young: I think this is already addressed in my response above. I will add here that the euph-tuba ensemble is often the only organized chamber ensemble opportunity for euphonium players and the only avenue available for chamber playing for many tuba players œ sometimes there aren‘t enough brass players for every tubist to have a brass quintet opportunity. The euphonium-tuba ensemble is necessary (my opinion) to insure that every student has a quality chamber ensemble experience. Lair: Can you describe the reception the group has received by the public over the years? Young: We have a regular group of supporters in our community. We are invited to play in various venues away from campus ranging from leading the opening parade at an area Oktoberfest each year to performing in assisted living facilities. Our concerts on campus are always well attended. Lair: Do you feel professional tuba-euphonium ensembles are important to the development and continuity of the instrument? Why? Young: As a member of a professional group, Symphonia, my response to this question is somewhat prejudiced. I‘m not sure that there is a market to support a full-time group like Symphonia, however, our group has generated a good deal of top quality repertoire that has contributed positively to the artistic aspirations of the better college groups. Because of the nature of our profession (most of us separated by large distances), bringing groups like Symphonia together is very expensive and prohibit large scale activity. Lair: What have you witnessed in the evolution of tuba quartets over the decades? Young: The quartet medium holds the greatest promise. As evidenced from earlier comments and data, it is obviously easier for quartets to have success. Over the years a great deal of literature of high artistic value has been composed for quartets. This medium continues to move in a good direction.

Lair: Do you think they will have a place as a traditional chamber ensemble? Young: I believe that there is real potential here. When Tubalate, Sotto Voce, and Four Star Brass performed on my campus, they attracted good audiences, and were highly appreciated. I believe that the appreciation was couched more in the fact that they were groups of high artistic achievement that presented interesting programs than as —novelty“ groups. The key lies in groups such of these presenting themselves as artists/chamber ensembles of musical integrity rather than as oddities.

APPENDIX 5 WRITTEN INTERVIEW WITH DR. JOHN STEVENS, 4 FEBRUARY, 2008

Lair: Can you describe the history and climate related to tuba ensembles in the 1960‘s? Stevens: This is when the "movement" really began - primarily in two places: Tennessee Tech University with Winston Morris and the University of Miami with Connie Weldon. Both programs were, in my memory, focused primarily on large, participatory ensembles rather than one-on-a-part chamber groups. However, they were commissioning or generating new works for 4, 5 or 6 part ensembles. I was in high school until 1969 and then began my undergraduate work at Eastman. Nothing going on there in terms of tuba ensembles - I believe the earliest efforts were pretty much confined to Winston, Connie, and their earliest protégés. Lair: 1970‘s? Stevens: When I arrived at Yale for graduate school (1973-75) I began composing for multiple tubas because we had a small group of players there that were very interested in this. The New York Tuba Quartet had recently started up, and Toby Hanks was my teacher at Yale. Chamber music was a big focus - with the New York Brass Quintet all on the Yale faculty - so writing tuba quartets was a natural extension of that. I composed Power, Music 4 Tubas and Dances during my two years at Yale. When I graduated with my masters degree, I went to New York City to begin my freelance career. I started a quartet with, among others, Warren Deck (prior to him winning the Houston Symphony position), but I soon joined the New York Tuba Quartet, replacing Tony Price. They had already recorded their album, Tubby's Revenge. During my New York years (1975-81) I wrote Manhattan Suite, Diversions, and some arrangements. We also recorded DANCES on Toby Hanks' Sampler CD. There was very little going on in the northeast with euphoniums although we began playing them ourselves to lighten the sound of the quartet and to be able to write in a higher tessitura. In other areas of the country, inspired by Winston, Connie and their "offspring", ensembles were beginning to spring up at colleges. Lair: 1980‘s?

Stevens: Things really began to take off in this decade. I taught at the University of Miami for four years (1981-85) where I wrote many arrangements and composed Higashi-Nishi for the Tokyo Bari-Tuba ensemble, which I had heard at the 1983 ITEC at the University of Maryland. Ensembles of all sizes were become more common at colleges and universities around the country. I joined the faculty here at UW-Madison in 1985 and all of my other compositions and arrangements have been written since then. (For a complete listing of my works, go to my faculty link on our School of Music web site: www.music.wisc.edu Lair: 1990‘s and 2000‘s? Stevens: Perhaps the most notable thing about the past 15 years or so is that low brass ensembles of various instrumentations - primarily tuba-euphonium quartets - have become even more common and have had success at the professional level all over the world. Most notable to me are the Sotto Voce Quartet, the Modern Jazz Tuba Project, England's Tubalate, the Melton Quartett from Germany and of course, Symphonia. More and more music, both original works and exciting arrangements, are being written by excellent composer/arrangers. Lot's of activity! Lair: Why did you form the Tuba-Euphonium Ensemble with your studio? Stevens: With my background and experience as a chamber musician, composer/arranger of low brass ensemble music and general advocate for the medium, it was a natural thing to do. I consider it to be an integral part of my program here. Lair: What has been your overriding philosophy for the group? Stevens: In a nutshell: play a wide variety of good repertoire from all periods and styles of music, always give well prepared performances that are as musically excellent as possible, have an ensemble that is at a professional level in every way, and use the ensemble to teach both fundamentals and advanced techniques of playing and artistic music making. Lair: Did you have any special influences? Stevens: My experiences at Eastman and Yale when I was a student, working with world class musicians in a variety of contexts then and when I became a professional, and those people who encouraged me to write. Special mention to Rayburn Wright and Chuck Mangione at Eastman, Toby Hanks,the members of the New York and American

Brass Quintets, my colleagues in the New York Tuba Quartet (Toby, Sam Pilafian and Steven Johns), Howard Johnson, Roger Bobo, Harvey Phillips, Pat Sheridan and many of my students who have been greatly inspiring to me. Lair: Do you feel tuba ensembles are important in the university curriculum? Why? Stevens: My ensemble is an extremely valuable teaching tool, as well as providing a musical and social focal point for the studio and other low brass players at the university. We play a wider variety of music than any other ensemble, students get opportunities to compose and arrange for the group... you bet it's important. Any chamber group or homogeneous ensemble of this type is a great way for students to improve faster as players and musicians. W rehearse for two and a half hours every Friday afternoon - it's how we end our week - and the students often eat dinner together afterwards. My program has been significantly enhanced by devoting energy to making this ensemble important. Lair: Can you describe the reception the group has received by the public over the years? Stevens: In addition to playing at conferences and other special events, we do a big concert on campus each semester. Our typical audience is in the neighborhood of 150 people (from very young children on up - we normally perform on weekend afternoons). We have a nice following and are always well received. There is still a novelty factor to this type of ensemble that never fails to impress - partly because we play "real" music that folks don't expect to hear from our instruments. Lair: Do you feel professional tuba-euphonium ensembles are important to the development and continuity of the instrument? Why? Stevens: In a word, yes! Musical leadership and setting a high standard are important in every facet of musical life - why should this be any different? Lair: What have you witnessed in the evolution of tuba quartets over the decades?

Stevens: Practically everything - from the birth of the idea up to our present situation of countless student and professional ensembles and a huge amount of repertoire. I am proud to have contributed to this evolution as a player, writer, conductor, teacher and advocate. Both the quantity and quality of ensembles has gone through the roof in a 40

year period. The instrumentation of two euphs and two tubas has become the most standard - our equivalent of the string quartet or brass quintet. Lair: Do you think they will have a place as a traditional chamber ensemble? Stevens: I believe they already do. Without question there are musicians who still view these ensembles as a sort of novelty and kind of smirk at the very idea, but I would say their numbers are overwhelmed by those who view tuba quartets as a viable chamber ensemble. You had particularly asked about my involvement with Symphonia. I thoroughly enjoyed the 10 years that we were busy playing at conferences and recording. Every time we got together it was like a mini-conference, a great chance to hang and make music with many of my esteemed colleagues and friends from around the country. We have had fun, made some great music and helped to set a high professional standard and enhance the exposure to the public of low brass ensembles. Not to mention helping to generate more music. You also asked about my writing (see web site). I began to compose for my own instrument in solo and ensemble settings because I felt that that was a real need for new repertoire in styles that would connect us in better ways to the public. I still feel that way. As my career as a composer has evolved, I remain committed to writing for brass as much as possible.

APPENDIX 6 ORAL INTERVIEW WITH DR. JOSEPH SKILLEN, 25 JANUARY, 2008

Lair: Well, OK the first question is purely historical. Can you describe the cultural and professional climate related to Tuba Ensembles in the 1960‘s? Skillen: The cultural and, you said, professional climate? Lair: What I‘m looking for is the history. Skillen: Yeah. Well, basically in the early sixties you got two people that are really responsible for getting the tuba ensemble started. Well, actually three I guess you could say. You‘ve got Bill Bell at Indiana University that put together a sort of a tuba studio class, and I think the first tuba ensemble —performance“ was when they all played the Hindemith together. It was my understanding that they, I don‘t know if they had a pianist involved or if they all were just sitting there just kind of counting through and kind of playing the Hindemith together, but I think they called that their first tuba ensemble sort of thing. And then later in Miami Connie Weldon was responsible for starting a program at University of Miami and then Winston Morris at Tennessee Tech in 1967 started off some of the stuff that he had going on. In fact I have a CD of his fortieth anniversary recording we just put out. The CD came to me in the mail yesterday. The stuff we had so yeah, it‘s gone everywhere since then. You know, since that time Connie is now retired and she didn‘t take it to the high profile places I guess Winston wound up doing, but during that time I guess I would just say that it was experimental and it was an opportunity for people to transcribe and write, you know, have instruments play music they just previously had never done. It was probably a search for legitimacy but it was also just an experimentation more than anything else I would imagine. Lair: Uh-huh. Great! Thank you. Skillen: Sure. Lair: Uh, how about the seventies? Skillen: The seventies! Well, uh, if you look at all things seventies in music, you know, there‘s pretty much, I think, beyond moving legitimacy, moving out of the sixties, the seventies was totally an era of experimentation. You see that with what the composers

were writing at that time for our instruments. I mean avant-garde was saxophone literature, tuba literature, and pretty much all the other instruments who didn‘t have enough literature to play the old stuff. Composers figured out that we would play pretty much anything at the time, and so you see an explosion, well, explosion is maybe a big word but you see a larger body of literature written for a tuba ensemble that sort of mirrors what was going on with solo literature at the time with more experimental stuff. In fact in the seventies you‘ll see baby Eric Ewazen before he turned into the Eric Ewazen that we know now. He actually wrote an aleatoric piece called The Devil‘s Septet in the seventies which is for I think ten, I think it‘s like eight or eleven parts and piano, and it‘s completely aleatoric and I find it to be actually very interesting. It‘s more interesting than his current music. But I think he realized that the seventies would be short-lived and he needed to write some styles that other people would want to hear more readily and so now he‘s writing what he‘s doing but there were a number of pieces from that time that period of time that I would just call experimental and what kind of tones are possible and pretty conservative writing in terms of range and technical expectations in the tuba ensemble realm, but probably a little bit more interested in harmonic combinations that were originally more of an atonal and aleatoric kind of structure. Lair: Uh-huh. Great. O.K. and the eighties. Skillen: Eighties. I‘m thinking the eighties is a little more, well, if you have to characterize the, are we still talking professionals whom, thing, or are we still talking just the literature specifically? Lair: Well, I‘m interested in collegiate and professional ensembles. Skillen: Ensembles, do you mean literature or just like the number of ensembles or all of that?

Lair: All of that. Anything you can remember off the top of your head.

Skillen: All that! OK. Well you saw in the eighties Winston‘s again started to do the Army Conference Tuba-Euphonium Ensemble, and I think this was something where they got all the top players in the DC Service Bands to form an ensemble he conducted and he used it as a venue of bringing a lot of the music that he was doing with his Tech

Ensemble to a wider audience, and frankly to better players that could put stuff together more quickly and I think through that venue and through some of his earlier recordings you saw, at the beginning it‘s kind of like a spreading of the ensemble literature. Is something wrong? Are you cool? Lair: No! No, it‘s good! Skillen: OK, I heard you like —Oh Crap!“ like the recording was breaking or something! Lair: Well I did have a little technical issue, but I figured it out.

Skillen: OK, OK, cool! Stop me if you need to correct something or whatever. Lair: I got it. Skillen: You see, I think this is kind of like the era of getting the word out that this is something that places might want to try, and might want to do more of, and you begin to see more arrangements that are becoming available. You know, at that time I think Brass Press was putting things out in Nashville and you see the early beginnings of people beginning to transcribe and actually publish this literature, where as before it was largely commissions and original works written for specific people that didn‘t, you know, publish their work. It was just more again an experiment and here you go and composers not thinking that there would be many more performances of those works, so I‘d say the eighties is kind of like the beginning of spreading this idea out to other campuses and then professionally I think you‘re looking at the Army Tuba-Euphonium Conference as being the place where people started thinking about making more of a professional type ensemble out of that situation. Lair: Great. That sounds like a research lead! Skillen: Oh, good! Lair: Yeah. Now, if you don‘t mind me asking, when were you at Tennessee Tech? Skillen: I was there from ‘87 until ‘91. Lair: OK, so you got a student‘s perspective, then, in the late eighties. Skillen: Oh, yeah! Lair: Wonderful. OK, and how about the nineties? Skillen: OK, nineties, well, I should tell you about the student‘s perspective thing about in the eighties. There was a period where Winston was at that time starting to break into

looking into jazz and looking into doing these Mardi Gras parades and some of these sort of popularizations sort of stuff that he was branching into some of that and I think that kind of caught the eye or ear of some other teachers and players and you had like the, I think this was the Tubadours were like in the seventies at Walt Disney out in California. I think Ron Davis was in that group. Are you familiar with him? Lair: Uh-huh Skillen: And so those kind of folks were largely playing, I think the Tubadours did —beer drinking“ songs more than anything else, but then you have other quartets starting to do more of the popular stuff that would spread more widely to audiences, so you had like ensembles and you had quartets doing stuff in the eighties. In the nineties, I think it‘s just more of the same, and this is where you see a bigger proliferation of smaller chamber groups. Probably not the big tuba ensembles, but you see like the Navy Quartet, with Keith Malen and Marty Erickson and David Miles. Roger Behrend, they were starting to do a good bit of stuff out performing, making recordings. You had, oh that group that Mary Ann Craig was in with Gregory Fritze and Hildebrandt. I forgot what they called themselves. Do you know who I‘m talking about? Lair: I‘m not sure. Skillen: Oh! The Colonial, that‘s what they called themselves. Lair: Oh œ the Colonial Quartet! Right! Skillen: Yeah, Gary Bird was in that. You get all groups that are starting to become, quote recording groups, or trying to do the conference circuit or whatever. There probably were about four or five quartets going on in the nineties that were recording widely, you know, widely used in quotation marks, but they were known anyway in that time period. And then pretty much in the nineties I would say that most major universities had a tuba ensemble that was happening at that time, probably in the nineties. In the eighties I would say about fifty or sixty percent of most major universities. In the nineties, you are looking at almost every major university has one and then smaller universities are starting to go —us too!“ You know? Lair: Yeah

Skillen: In the nineties for that. And there was just a wider amount of literature available because more people are publishing and making that music available so it‘s kind of feeding itself at that time. Lair: Uh-huh. Super! OK. Why did you form the tuba-euphonium ensemble with your studio? Skillen: Well, my reason for making the tuba-euphonium ensemble, and I should say that before I came to LSU, we didn‘t have a tuba-euphonium teacher so I‘m the first one that they‘ve had, and Larry Campbell was teaching here previously, and he had trombone, euphonium, and tuba so he was the professor of low brass, and he made a low brass ensemble. But they didn‘t have a tuba-euphonium ensemble or a trombone choir so when I got here we had the opportunity to split those groups and I did form a tuba-euphonium ensemble my first year here in ninety-eight actually, and my reasoning for doing that is primarily a pedagogical reason. I don‘t find, personally, you may quote me on that I guess, but I don‘t find personally tuba ensemble to be the most musically rewarding genre that a person could perform in to be honest. I think it‘s a wonderful venue for teaching students to learn a vast array of styles, to learn to play inner voices when largely the tuba players are playing in their band and orchestra parts the roots of chords. They need to learn intonation tendencies of learning to play the inner voices. I think that‘s really important, and I think it gives the studio teacher a little more artistic control over the types of ensemble music their students are going to play. And so for me it‘s an opportunity to expose them to the styles, the composers, the methods of playing that I think that they‘re going to need in chamber situations and just as a well rounded musician that I don‘t think they‘re getting always in the orchestra or in the band program. So for me it‘s a pedagogical reason and then I do sort of as needed in our field to get the word out there about what your students are doing. We do go to conferences and we do go on tour and we do perform to get people excited about what the studio‘s doing but I don‘t do it in the pioneering sort of aspect. I do it more in the —here‘s what my students sound like, giving them performance opportunities and expose them to as many styles of music as possible“. Lair: Sure. Well, I hope this isn‘t redundant, but the next question that I have is what has been your overriding philosophy for the group?

Skillen: Oh OK! Well, a lot of just what I said, but the main thing is that they‘re learning to play well together. They‘re learning a lot of the styles and they‘re getting, for me personally it‘s a chance for me to show them my musicianship as a conductor or as a coach away from actually performing on my instrument so I think that‘s important too that they see that.

Lair: Uh-huh. OK, this one‘s also kind of obvious. I‘m sorry. Did you have any special influences? Skillen: (laughter) Well, yeah. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah I mean pretty much I knew about Winston all the way from since I was in junior high school. I studied with one of his former students when I was in junior high in Tennessee, and I just had known about him all the way through, so for me growing up, in fact when I was in junior high school I started a tuba ensemble. In junior high school. We played some of the early, you know, published literature that was out there. You know, Lewd Dances, Tuba Duba Juba, and some of that stuff. Lair: Yeah, yeah! Skillen: Some of that stuff that‘s sort of, you know, schlock and trash now, but that‘s what we, we thought we were really hot in middle school doing that. So I just thought that tuba ensemble‘s just something you do. You know, growing up all the way from when I started to play my instrument because I was exposed to it that early on. So with my first private teacher all the way to Winston to going to school there. Yeah. Those are my early influences. Lair: OK. Do you feel that tuba ensembles are important to the university curriculum and why? Skillen: Yeah. I think they are. We currently have it as a class here, so it‘s in the curriculum, but we also have trombone choir, we have flute ensemble, we have percussion ensemble. I think these homogenous ensembles are actually very important, mainly because the top chair players are always going to get good experiences at a university with the top groups playing interesting literature. It‘s the students that are sitting third through sixth chair. They might be in a second group, in a third group, that

aren‘t going to have the exposure to the higher quality literature at times. They have expectations of grade six plus that they would be expected to play in tuba ensemble that they wouldn‘t be playing necessarily in the third band. And so I think that to stretch them musically, to put them on an even keel with their peers, that their education isn‘t determined by where they‘re sitting in our ensembles, but it‘s more determined by what they‘re capable of practicing to do in the ensemble where everyone is equal, and I think that‘s really important. Lair: Uh-huh. OK. Do you feel that professional tuba-euphonium ensembles are important to the development and continuity of the instrument and why? Skillen: You know, I play with Symphonia, and I think we have a good time when we get together and play and I think we make good recordings, so to that end I think it‘s a really nice thing to be doing. I‘m not sure if perpetuating the art, necessarily. I think it‘s just a more of the same in a lot of ways. I don‘t know. Maybe that‘s a negative way of putting it, but…..(laughter) Lair: Not at all! It‘s honest. Skillen: I think it‘s more of the same at a higher level, but the necessity of it, ah I‘m not sure but we make good music. Lair: Can you describe your impression of the reception that you think Symphonia has received by the public over the years? Skillen: You know, I think largely the most general audience that we‘ve played for was the Texas Music Educators at TMEA back in, oh goodness, 2004 or something like that. It was widely received as being an excellent group, and we would play for their opening ceremonies and then we did a clinic for them later and I think the perception was a very positive one. Outside of playing at conferences or playing at things like that, I‘m not aware of the group doing a whole lot more other that that to be honest. So as far as like a general audience, I think the Tennessee Tech Ensemble probably plays for more general audiences than Symphonia does. And when they do that they tend to go out and play jazz, they tend to play some of their rock and funk stuff things that they‘ve done. And I think that‘s again widely received as —I had no idea tubas could do that. That‘s fascinating. That‘s exciting.“

Sometimes Symphonia doesn‘t play that type of literature. So I think Symphonia‘s mission is a little more geared to professionals already revealed, being stretched rather than to a more general audience. Lair: (call interruption noise) I apologize for that. Skillen: Oh that‘s OK! Lair: Somebody‘s trying to call me. And tuba-euphonium quartets. Obviously influences the tuba-euphonium ensemble. They began to see success in the 1970‘s as collegiate and professional groups. What have you witnessed in the evolution of the tuba-euphonium quartet over the decades? Skillen: I would think just a greater level of expectation of artistry. You know, just from the quartets. They‘re doing more complicated literature. I think Sotto Voce comes to mind that they‘re doing a lot of commissioning and playing at a high level. I think they‘re also doing a good job of expanding styles in works they play. There are some other quartets that did the same thing in the seventies and eighties, but I think just the development is just, it‘s gotten deeper and it‘s gotten richer pretty much. Lair: Uh-huh. Do you think that the tuba-euphonium quartet will have a place as a traditional chamber ensemble? Skillen: Well, we‘d have to do a lot more work, to be honest with you. I think it‘s going to have to, not like the saxophone quartet. I think the saxophone quartet has a better chance of that, mainly because of the broader range of their instruments. You know, they can get the soprano sax all the way down to bari sax. And we‘re just missing that treble register that a lot of audiences expect to hear. You know, when you think of string quartet, you think of saxophone quartet, you think of any other chamber, brass quintet, it has the full gamut of timbres and range that most audiences expect and I think after about two or three even really well played songs, most audiences tend to tune out the timbre of the tuba quartet because it just starts to sound the same after a while. Lair: Right. OK. Fantastic. Well, that‘s all the questions I have, and I really appreciate you taking the time to do this!

APPENDIX 7 ORAL INTERVIEW WITH DEMONDRAE THURMAN, 3 FEBRUARY, 2008

Lair: Can you hear me OK? Thurman: Yeah. I can hear you fine. Lair: Great. So my first question that I had for you then is I just wanted to kind of pick your brain about the history of the tuba-euphonium ensemble first of all, starting in the late fifties and the sixties? Thurman: Right. Well, as far as I know going back that, the first piece that I sort of identified with is the Frank Lynne Payne Quartet, which was originally kind of designed as a one euphonium, three tuba quartet, and I want to say that was written for a competition that the University of Miami was having. And my perspective will mainly come from original compositions because that‘s I feel like that‘s so much, so many people you can talk to about arrangements. You know particularly that Winston Morris thing, I mean they‘ve created so many of the arrangements that we play, along with some original compositions of course, but usually the parts in numbers is four. So I identified with the Frank Lynne Payne Quartet and I think it was written in 1961. Don‘t quote me on that one. You may want to double-check it. I think it‘s at the bottom of the piece, but anyway, and that‘s a piece that we sort of defined as Sotto Voce, we sort of make it be the way we thought tuba quartet ought to go, so once we get to where we are, that piece had a big profound impact on what we were doing. You know it was kind of a modern piece. It didn‘t deal so much with tonal harmonies and all that kind of stuff and it was very intricate rhythmically. You know, particularly for the time because we, you know, tubas and euphoniums were particularly weren‘t thought of at that time as playing really serious stuff unless, you know, you got the call to Mahler 6 or something or you know, the solo from the Planets, you know, on euphonium, but that was about the extent for anything really serious for us to play at all, let alone in a chamber music capacity. And then after that, the music started to go more towards the jazz side of things in the seventies with the stuff that John Stevens was writing. And he was writing primarily for four tubas and he was also writing for individual people. He actually had peoples‘ names on the parts, you know at one point. Toby Hanks, Steven Johns, himself, and you know,

a couple of other guys, Sam Pilafian played with them for a while and the music became sort of jazz oriented. Most of his quartets from the seventies had changes and so you literally had to be able to improvise in order to play his music. He did publish them with written out solos but that wasn‘t the intent at all. I think that was just to make sure that the pieces could be published and through those pieces the music became a little bit more complex rhythmically and again just with adding jazz to the music it became, you know, just that much more widespread. It appealed to a slightly different public, and from my perspective I really can‘t recall any significant from the eighties. You know I can‘t think of a single piece that sticks out in my mind as anything significant happening in the 1980‘s. I don‘t know what you‘ve heard otherwise. I can‘t recall. I can‘t think of anything and I have a huge library. You know, with the nineties, you know, it really kind of became something. Everybody was writing tuba quartets at the time, and I have to credit the Tuba Euphonium Association. I think it was called Tuba Universal Brotherhood whatever it was, Association at the time. But they were having all these competitions and things and having people write music for those particular competitions, so a lot of people started writing music. Like I still think the best of it in my opinion John Stevens was writing. He wrote the really great piece Moon Dance in the mid- nineties. Again they were for specific people. He wrote for Sam Pilafian. Was it Sam? Let‘s see, no, it was Roger Bobo, Harvey Phillips, Gene Pokorny, and Dan Perantoni. Yeah that was the group. And that piece sort of changed the way people wrote for tubas and euphoniums because it was super intricate compared to anything that was written and it probably other than the Frank Lynne Payne, the biggest influence on what Sotto Voce ended up doing with tuba quartet music and the writing of Mike Forbes and Patrick Schultz in particular. I think Moon Dance and the Frank Lynne Payne Quartet, and that Ralph Martino Fantasy, that was also written in the nineties right around the same time as the John Stevens quartet. I think those three pieces really sort of change the way people wrote for tuba-euphonium quartets in particular. Lair: Great. Super. That‘s good stuff. You have a tuba-euphonium ensemble at the University of Alabama, right? Thurman: Absolutely Lair: I thought so. And why did you form that ensemble with your studio?

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Thurman: I‘m sorry? Lair: And why did you form the tuba-euphonium ensemble with the studio? Thurman: At Alabama? Well, it‘s an ensemble that always existed, at least from my knowledge. My, I actually graduated from the University of Alabama. I don‘t know if you knew that, so my freshman year was 1992, and at the time the teacher was James Jenkins. Now the principal tubist in the Jacksonville Symphony and he studied with John Stevens at Miami, and Connie Weldon, so he brought tuba ensemble to Alabama as soon as he got there. So I‘ve always known about tuba-euphonium ensemble. But we had a great time. We were playing great music. And when Mike Dunn got to the University of Alabama, of course he came from Winston Morris. Another, you know, serious, you know, the other serious tuba ensemble tuba quartet pedagogue, and so it became even bigger under his thing and then when I left Alabama I went to the University of Wisconsin to study with John Stevens so I couldn‘t help but have a tuba ensemble. That was such a major part of my training both at the undergraduate and at the graduate level, and for me I use it as a resource to teach my students about other styles. We play a lot of jazz. We get some contemporary music there. Most of the euphonium players increase their range sitting in tuba ensemble because the parts are high and that kind of thing so it‘s a real big teaching tool for me. And it‘s fun. We treat it as serious as wind ensemble and orchestra. Lair: Uh-huh. Do you feel that tuba ensembles are important in the university curriculum? Thurman: Absolutely! Absolutely. I think particularly with tuba and euphonium players. I don‘t think the ensemble experience with orchestra nor band really prepares a player for what it‘s going to be like to play in the modern times. Whereas I find that tuba ensemble kind of does, you know, because so many of those pieces are written by tuba and euphonium players and they‘re setting the bar for what our instruments can do. They, you know, the people who write for tuba quartets and tuba ensemble are usually great players themselves. And so they‘re setting the standard for what it is to play like whereas the regular composer that would write for band wouldn‘t necessarily write that high note, you know, for the euphonium or that low note for the tuba. Whereas in a tuba

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ensemble you‘ll get that. So that‘s all of a sudden a skill you have to have which you can then take to lessons and all of a sudden you play better literature than you were, you know just a while back in and if it weren‘t that you wouldn‘t get that impetus to get that extra skill set. Lair: Right. Great. Can you tell me when and why Sotto Voce was formed? Thurman: Yeah, sure. The when part of that is 1996 at the University of Wisconsin. When I was preparing to graduate from Alabama and looking at graduate schools one of the things I wanted was to be able to play in a really good tuba ensemble and preferably play in a really good quartet. So John Stevens the obvious choice for me. I called him up and asked him what kind of studio he had and that kind of stuff. I‘d heard him play before, and you know, were they really into chamber music and that kind of thing and he promised me I‘d have a great quartet when I got there, so when I got to Wisconsin Sotto Voce was kind of already formed. You know, four people that made up a very original version of the group. You know, we played our first concert before school started. And so we played together in that capacity with the original first tuba player for a semester and a half and as we started to get really serious about competitions and trying to do I.T.E.C.‘s and all that stuff. He decided to drop out of the group because he had a family and couldn‘t be on the road as much as we were trying to be and so we picked up Nat McIntosh after that and that was spring semester of 1998. And at that point the group really took off because once we all graduated from school and left school we decided that we could make a pretty good run, you know, of having Sotto Voce be a legitimate concert group. We had won all the major competitions for us that summer. We had had success at the Fischoff and at the Concert Artists‘ Guild Competitions which string quartets and brass quintets compete and we could probably make a go of it. And so we‘ve been together now for, what does that make, twelve years I guess. Lair: Yeah. OK. Do you feel that that kind of professional tuba-euphonium quartet is important to the development and continuity of the instrument? Thurman: I think so. Again, you know, particularly with our group, I can speak for, you know, eighty-five ninety percent of what we play is written within the group. One of us either composes or arranges the music, and, but we know each other‘s strengths and limitations very well and sometimes we exploit the weaknesses and sometimes we

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highlight the strengths and through that, you know, we‘ve, I think we‘ve expanded not only the quality of the music like through the writing and the composing and arranging, but we‘ve also stretched out peoples‘ playing levels. I mean when we premiered Consequences in 1999 that was the hardest thing out. Now there are way harder pieces than Consequences that exist. And people are playing them very well. So I think via that piece, you know, people have discovered that, oh wow we can do much more than we thought we could do. Look at this piece. No one could play it. Now everybody can play it. And the music keeps getting harder and harder and better and better. And through that, you know, we‘re all becoming better players.

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APPENDIX 8 ORAL INTERVIEW WITH DR. SKIP GRAY, 11 FEBRUARY, 2008

Lair: OK. Great. I‘m especially interested, like I mentioned in my email, I‘m interested in Rex Connor and his history at University of Kentucky, so you know, I sent you these questions, but if at any point you want to interject some information about Rex Connor I would love that. Gray: He was a really nice man and he taught at University of Kentucky. He was the first full-time professor of tuba and euphonium at any university in the world when they hired in 1960 at Kentucky and then after that Bill Bell in sixty-one at Indiana and then the floodgate sort of broke open after that. Lair: Uh-huh. OK. I understand he was doing maybe some duets with his students and performing? Gray: I don‘t know anything about that. Lair: OK! Gray: (laughter) Sorry! Lair: That‘s OK! Gray: When he left, he just sort of, I mean he was in town for a couple years and we would get together and talk and stuff like that but when he left he basically left here and didn‘t reminisce much about UK. Lair: OK! Fair enough! Gray: (laughter) I regret to say I don‘t know much about him other than that he was a nice man. Lair: Yeah. Well shall we jump into the questions? Gray: Sure thing! Lair: OK. Can you describe the history and climate related to tuba ensembles in the 1960‘s? Gray: Yeah. I think that there was some important work done by two people. First of all, Constance Weldon, who I think you probably know the name. She taught at University of there in Florida and she did a lot of early work with promoting arrangements and compositions for tuba-euphonium ensemble. She did a lot especially in

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the popular realm. She had her group, did a lot of entertaining type of functions. I remember seeing pictures of even Sam Pilafian in her tuba-euphonium ensemble dressed up in black pants and a red and white vest playing some barbershop or dixieland tunes at a gig that she was doing. Most notable, she organized in 1967, a national tuba quartet competition, and I think the big work that still is played that came out of that competition in 1967 is the Quartet for Tubas by Frank Lynne Payne. And it‘s published by Shawnee Press. We can‘t forget Winston Morris. Winston Morris began his time at Tennessee Tech in the mid-fifties, mid-sixties rather, and was really instrumental with the foundation of the tuba-euphonium ensemble as an art form. And Winston has sort of a joking story about how the tuba ensemble was actually created. He said there were twenty of us sitting around in a classroom at Indiana in the early sixties playing the Hindemith Sonate in unison, and that‘s the birth of the tuba ensemble. So that‘s Winston‘s sort of story about the birth of the tuba-euphonium ensemble. Let‘s see. I think we have to mention in the seventies the advent of Tuba Christmas, organized by Harvey Phillips nationwide. That sort of got the attention of people that the tuba- euphonium ensemble is a viable musical ensemble and just spread all around the country and literally all around the world in the seventies and the Wilder, Alec Wilder arrangements that Harvey commissioned became standard as far as playing Christmas tunes for tuba and euphonium players. Also, a very important event was in 1973, First International Tuba Symposium that Harvey organized and hosted at Indiana University, and at that he invited a lot of composers just to attend and then talk with tuba players, and there was a premiere of a very important piece that‘s almost dropped off the face of the map, or the face of the earth right now. That‘s Gunther Schuller‘s Five Moods for Four Tubas. That was a seminal work that was premiered at that 1973 First International Tuba Symposium and it‘s a great piece that influenced a lot of composers, I think, to write for tuba-euphonium quartet and tuba-euphonium ensemble. I think another big piece that was played at that First International Tuba Symposium in seventy-three was Alec Wilder‘s arrangement of Come, Sweet Death. The jazz, actually it wasn‘t Wilder‘s. I‘m looking at it right now. It‘s in my office hanging on the wall. It‘s Eddie Sauter‘s arrangement. S-A-U-T-E-R. Eddie Sauter‘s arrangement of Come, Sweet Death, which was Bill Bell‘s favorite Bach chorale, and Eddie Sauter who is a really famous New York

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composer, in fact I think he did the music for The Twilight Zone and lots of other big TV shows in the fifties and sixties. This is played by a massed ensemble at the First International Symposium, and I think he gave all the people there an idea of what big tuba ensemble could sound like. And I think and then it was just sort of passed around from people who would photocopy it off and give it to their students and other professionals and stuff and they usually back in the early seventies everyone played Come, Sweet Death with two to two hundred tubas. Is this the kind of stuff that you want? Lair: Yes! This is perfect! Gray: OK. Then later in the seventies, 1976, I think a very important new direction in tuba ensemble was developed by Rich Matteson and Harvey Phillips embodied in the Matteson-Phillips Tuba Jazz Consort, which was made up of Rich Matteson, Ashley Alexander, Buddy Baker, Harvey Phillips, Dan Perantoni, and R. Winston Morris, and rhythm section. And that group, I think their first big performance might have been at Illinois Music Education Association in January 1977 in Chicago. And then for years after, they would play in Chicago at various clubs on Rush Street during Midwest, so all these music educators, both at middle school, high school, and college level would go down to Rush Street and hear the Matteson-Phillips Tuba Jazz Consort, and really hear tubas and euphoniums playing together in a completely new setting, the jazz setting with the fantastic jazz artistry of Rich Matteson and Ashley Alexander. So I think that was a pretty important event. And that group played, I guess they stayed together into the mid- eighties doing various club work and playing conferences and stuff. Let‘s see if I can ready my hen scratches here. In 1978 at the International Tuba Euphonium Conference in Los Angeles they sponsored a tuba-euphonium quartet composition competition. And I think that there were over sixty or seventy works that were submitted to that competition. You might want to check back in the T.U.B.A. Journal at following the conference in 1978. There were a lot of really good works that came out of that. I doubt whether very many of them still exist any more. But my favorite, I probably played through sixty of those works out of that competition. My favorite was one called Tuba Quartet by Peter Davison. D-A-V-I-S-O-N. That was an excellent work. And there were a lot of other very good works that came out of that

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competition. Let‘s see what‘s next. In the eighties I think tuba-euphonium ensemble really proliferated at colleges and universities because as very of us, various of us, heard the Tennessee Tech Ensemble at conferences and on their recordings and decided we needed to do that at our university and we were actually able to develop the ensemble as a —for credit“ entity at the university and through the late seventies and eighties it happened a lot and it was a good thing, I think, because it also helped generate load credit for tuba and euphonium professors who, you know, if they only had maybe ten or twelve students and they met with tuba ensemble once or twice a week that would be two additional hours of load credit for them and it also helped really establish the tuba and euphonium both as instruments that were as legitimate as any other instruments, I think, and also helped legitimize the tuba-euphonium ensemble since it was a —for credit“ class at universities, and it helped legitimize it. I think that was a pretty important thing. It was a —for credit“ class at universities throughout the country. Let‘s see, also in the late seventies there were several professional tuba-euphonium quartets. Most notably, the United States Coast Guard Band Tuba Quartet founded by David Werden and Gary Buttery. There was also the Navy Band Tuba Quartet that I believe sort of began in the 1980‘s founded by Roger Behrend and Marty Erickson. There was the Tubadours at Disneyland, and Roger Vaughn, although he wasn‘t a member of the Tubadours he did a lot of arrangements and compositions for the Tubadours and really was one of the real, he helped them along a lot, by supplying new literature that they could do in the popular format at Disneyland. And then also in the eighties and early nineties there was a couple international groups that formed. The Melton Tuba Quartet, I think this is actually their twentieth anniversary this year so that would be 1988 they founded. Yeah. The Melton Tuba Quartet and that was pretty much under written by Gerhard Meinl of Meinl Weston fame, and there‘s also a Miraphone Tuba Quartet that started I think in the nineties in Paris, sort of under written by Miraphone Corporation, and they were basically members of the Paris Police Bands that got together to form this quartet and they were just a fantastic group. Both the Melton Quartet and the Miraphone Quartet were just really amazing groups. And the Melton Quartet is still in existence. I haven‘t heard much about the Miraphone Quartet recently, but those groups toured throughout Europe and the United States, and really, you know we think about the United States as being the center

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of tuba-euphonium quartet activity but they had these professional groups playing all around Europe back in the nineties and through this decade, and they were just really, really wonderful groups. Let‘s see. 1983. I‘ve got a note here if I can figure out what it means. Oh yeah! In 1983, the United States Army Band held their first tuba-euphonium conference, and at that they had an armed services, I guess we‘ll google it. What‘s the name of it? An armed services mass tuba-euphonium ensemble. And they‘ve held that every year. It‘s been sort of a tradition, and even the first year I think that there were probably thirty people or more that came out to play in it and this year they had ninety people performing in the Armed Service Tuba-Euphonium Ensemble. And it was first conducted, I think, I think it was first conducted by Arnold Gabriel the first year, and it really helped promote the tuba-euphonium ensemble because it got all the Army, all the military guys together playing in this great ensemble of super players and people heard it and said —Wow, we should be doing this at our school or wherever“ and so I think that‘s really helped promote tuba-euphonium ensemble also. In the nineties, well actually in 1980 at the at the International Tuba-Euphonium Conference in Denton, Texas they had an all-star collegiate tuba-euphonium ensemble and commissioned a couple works for it. I think the Fisher Tull Tubular Octad, and John Cheetham, what‘s the name of that piece? John Cheetham, it‘s right here I think. Consortium. Consortium by John Cheetham. Those were two big commissions for the all-star collegiate group in 1980, and so that was sort of a process that started at the International Tuba-Euphonium Conferences and kept going, even the last few conferences have had International All-Star Collegiate and All-Star High School Tuba-Euphonium Ensembles, and that also helped promote the instruments. In the nineties, there was a recording released. It was called the Gerhard Meinl Tuba Sextet, and it had the likes of Sam Pilafian, Warren Deck, Enrique Crespo, and a couple other people in it, and the intent of the recording was to try all of the different Melton or Meinl Weston tubas and euphoniums in different settings, different combinations together just to give Gerhard an idea of what the instruments sounded like together and some recordings that he could use to sort of demonstrate what the instruments sounded like, but it turned out to be so good that they released a CD on Angel records and for I think a number of months that CD was in the top ten classical

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music records or compact discs sold in the market, so that was a really important compact disc I think. It was an international release and it really helped promote tuba-euphonium ensemble. Let‘s see we talked about that. Oh, I can be a little vain here. The 1992 International Tuba-Euphonium Conference was here at the University of Kentucky, and I think I was the first to invite ten university tuba-euphonium ensembles to perform as featured ensembles on the conference. So I think that that helped an awful lot having ten university ensembles performing on ITEC and it really gave the eight hundred or more people that were in attendance a chance to hear lots of different styles of ensembles and a wide variety of literature. I think that helped a bit also. Let‘s see. Lair: Yeah I remember that conference. That was a particularly good one. Gray: I guess that‘s pretty much the comments I‘ve got on the history. Lair: OK Gray: And climate of tuba-euphonium ensembles Lair: Great. Why did you form the tuba-euphonium ensemble with your studio? Gray: Well, I‘ve got about five reasons for that. First of all, to teach a broader repertoire to tuba and euphonium students. You know, if tuba and euphonium players pretty much just rely on band and to a limited extent orchestra to learn the repertoire, that‘s really only a fraction of what‘s out there. You know we‘ve got a long history, a long period of music history from medieval music through the most contemporary, and they don‘t get that kind of experience just in band and orchestra and brass quintet really. So I think tuba ensemble is a way to teach a broader range of repertoire through transcriptions and original pieces. Secondly, it allows another forum in which to teach and reinforce pedagogy. I use tuba ensemble just as an extension of private lessons, basically in working on pedagogy and playing fundamentals. Thirdly, I think it builds studio camaraderie to get the kids together in a positive atmosphere; a positive rehearsal atmosphere with definite goals set out, I think brings the studio together. Fourth, it‘s used as an outreach tool. I can go out in the community, out in the state, around the country, and play concerts and represent not only the University of Kentucky, but also represent tuba and euphonium players and to put tuba and euphonium players out there where people, you know, people come up to me when we do a concert even in Lexington

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still where they‘ve been hearing tuba-euphonium ensemble for decades. People say —I never realized the tuba sounded like that!“ or —I never realized the tuba could do that!“ So it really provides an outreach opportunity for us to promote the instruments as well as draw new fans to the tuba and the euphonium. Lastly, at least the last note I‘ve got down here is it helps me raise money for studio activities. We do a concert at the elementary schools, and actually we‘ve done it at elementary through high school called —Tubas Around the World“ with UK tuba- euphonium ensemble. Tubas around the world, a musical tour of countries and cultures, and we charge four hundred dollars per performance for that. And some semesters we‘ve done ten performances in elementary schools around central Kentucky so that gives us a bit of a way to bankroll things like bringing in guest artists, taking studio trips, doing recordings, and that kind of thing, so it‘s a money raising activity also. So those are my five things why did I form the ensemble, or why I keep it going. Lair: Great. Well, that pretty much answers the next question about your overriding philosophy. Gray: Well, I do have a specific philosophy that I‘ve sort of written out here. Lair: OK. Great. Gray: No matter what type of literature we are performing, transcriptions, modern, etcetera, transcriptions, modern, march, polka, etcetera, we try to do it well. I think that‘s the overall philosophy. We don‘t want to go out there and sound like a bunch of tuba players. We want to make music at the highest level we can. Lair: Great. Did you have any special influences? Gray: I didn‘t really understand the scope of that question. Lair: As a professor teaching that group, did you have any special influences maybe from your background or from your colleagues? Gray: Well, I guess my first real experience with tuba ensemble was at Illinois when I was doing my doctorate, and Winston Morris came as a guest artist to conduct the tuba- euphonium ensemble, which we didn‘t have at University of Illinois at the time. Basically, Mr. P said —Yeah, Winnie‘s going to come over and we‘re going to do a concert with him.“ So we said —Well, what kind of concert?“ And he said, —Tuba- euphonium ensemble“. And so we sort of knew what tuba-euphonium was but most of us

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hadn‘t played in one before and this one weekend was really, with Winston, was really a turning point in my life seeing what tuba players and euphonium players could do in an ensemble together. So I think that‘s my biggest influence as far as tuba ensemble goes is that weekend we spent with Winston back in I think October 1978, and him working so hard to put together a great program and it just was a lot of fun working on the program with him. You know he‘s a wonderful musician, and it really opened my eyes to what could happen with tuba-euphonium ensemble. And after that, I really kept the ensemble going as much as I could at Illinois while I was a grad student there and then I was kind of brash I guess in a way. I wrote an article my last year of grad school called —The Tuba-Euphonium Ensemble Today“ that was published by the Instrumentalist in September 1980 that talked about the state of the tuba-euphonium ensemble as I understood it as a doctoral student. And even including some ideas about scoring for tuba-euphonium ensemble and the accomplishments that have happened up to that point. That might be an article you might want to dig out. The September 1980 Instrumentalist. Lair: I was just thinking that actually. Gray: I‘m not trying to promote myself in this, but in a way it does give a snapshot of the tuba-euphonium ensemble in 1980. Lair: So far I‘ve found a grand total of two articles about or even related to the history of the tuba-euphonium ensemble, so I‘m definitely going to go dig that one up. OK. Do you feel tuba-euphonium ensembles are important in the university curriculum? Gray: Yes! I definitely do. I think that they offer tuba and euphonium players an opportunity to more fully establish a positive identity and provide more opportunities for performance both on their instruments and also I let my students conduct and so it gives them rehearsal and conducting experience. As I said earlier, it also exposes tuba and euphonium players if they, if you use transcriptions and arrangements to a much broader range of repertoire than they would otherwise experience. Lair: OK. Can you describe the reception that your group has received by the public over the years or tuba-euphonium ensembles in general? Gray: Well, ideally, I don‘t think they‘ve gotten as good a response as I would have liked. I would like, when I do a tuba-euphonium ensemble concert for, you know, a thousand people to show up to listen to us like they do in Japan for instance. I was

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involved in some tuba-euphonium performances in Japan and there were literally a thousand or two thousand people come up for the concert. I have not encountered that in the United States, regrettably. So I don‘t think it‘s really caught on as maybe a respected or popular ensemble as much as I would have liked. And yet every time we perform, people come up to me and say —You know that was just a wonderful concert.“ We‘ve played everything as I mentioned from elementary schools, even preschools, through retirement centers with every age group in between and it seems like every age group really enjoys the sound of the group and the music that we can make, so I think that I‘ve had generally an excellent reception. I just wish that more people would come out and appreciate it. Lair: OK. Do you feel that professional tuba-euphonium ensembles are important to the continuity of the instrument? Gray: I think they are, and if you look at the professional ensembles that we‘ve had, especially the Melton Tuba Quartet, the Coast Guard Tuba Quartet, and the Navy Tuba Quartet, those guys have done a lot to really not only establish the instrument, but the Melton Tuba Quartet is funded by industry. Meinl Weston, Melton tuba and euphonium company and so, you know, Gerhard‘s out there designing and building new instruments, especially so that group can take them out and show how they work. So I think that‘s an important thing, but you know, for years I‘ve been preaching or wanting a Canadian Brass type tuba-euphonium quartet to sort of happen, and no one‘s really jumped at that yet. No one‘s really tried to do it, but I think there‘s a real opportunity for a tuba- euphonium quartet in sort of the style that the Canadian as done to help market the entity and also really popularize the tuba and euphonium and I think you could make a lot of money doing so also. Lair: Sure. That‘s a wonderful idea. What have you witnessed in the evolution of tuba quartets over the decades? Gray: Well truly what used to be novel in the seventies is now expected. You know, I remember back in undergraduate school. You know, sometimes we‘d get together out of the Wilder Tuba Christmas books and people would gather around and say —Wow! Four tuba players playing together in harmony. Wow! That‘s really cool. I didn‘t know you could do that.“ And that was like wild back then and now it‘s just from my perception

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something that‘s just not only understood but just expected. I mean here at UK, people hear a tuba-euphonium quartet or even just four tubas playing together it‘s like —Oh, yeah. That‘s just what we expect to hear. It‘s just what we expect around here.“ Lair: Do you think they will have a place, tuba quartets, as a traditional chamber ensemble? Gray: I think to a limited extent they already do. You know, the University of Wisconsin Tuba Quartet, I think won the Fischoff Competition four or five years ago. So, you know, it‘s already happened. I think that when some people consider a string quartet and a tuba-euphonium quartet, they don‘t consider them in the same ballpark but you know there‘s always going to be people like that and I think that it really is an established chamber ensemble form. And based on the literature, the professional performers that perform in the tuba- euphonium quartets, the literature, the performers, and some of the accomplishments of tuba-euphonium quartets, but I think it‘s got a long way to go, and I hope it goes further.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Arwood, Jeff. The United States Army Band Tuba-Euphonium Conference, International Tuba Euphonium Association, Volume 34, Number 4, Spring 2007.

Bell, William J., and Morris, Winston R. Encyclopedia of Literature for the Tuba, New York: Charles Colin, 1967.

Britton, Allen P. Twentieth Century Brass Soloists, Greenwood: Greenwood Press, 1994.

Brubeck, David, and Olah, John. —Connie‘s Final Toot!“ TUBA Journal, Summer 1991: 28-37

Clark, David Lindsey. Appraisals of Original Wind Music: A Survey and Guide, Greenwood: Greenwood Press, 1999.

Coffey, Tom. Sam Green, Teacher, Tubist, and Friend, International Tuba Euphonium Association, Volumer 32, No. 4, Summer 2005.

Goldstein, Edward R., and Morris, R. Winston. The Tuba Source Book, Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1996.

Keathley, Gilbert. The Tuba Ensemble. University of Rochester, Eastman School of Music, 1982.

Lewis, David. —The Story Behind Octubafest and Tuba Christmas“. The Instrumentalist. (December 1988): 36-37, and 38.

Lonman, Gregory C. The Tuba Ensemble: its Organization and Literature. Coral Gable, Florida: The University of Miami, 1974

Morris, R. Winston. —Music for Multiple Tubas.“ The Instrumentalist. 24 (April 1970): 57-58.

Morris, R. Winston. —The Evolution of the Tuba/Euphonium Ensemble.“ The Instrumentalist. 43 (December 1988): 15-17

Morris, R. Winston. Tuba Music Guide, Evanston, IL: The Instrumentalist Co., 1973.

Nowicke, Carole. Indiana University Tuba-Euphonium Oral History Project: Oral History Interview of Mr. R. Winston Morris, International Tuba Euphonium Association, Spring 2002.

Nowicke, Carole. ITEA History, Arthur Hull Hickes (1931-2003), International Tuba Euphonium Association, Volume 31, No. 2, Winter 2004.

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Perry, Richard Henry. Tennessee Tech Tuba Ensemble. Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Madison, 1996

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Christopher Lair currently teaches applied tuba at Evangel University. He also teaches The Language of Music: Music in Twentieth Century United States at The Missouri State University, and co-directs The Missouri State University Tuba- Euphonium Ensemble. After a career performing with symphony orchestras and U.S. military bands, he is active as a soloist and chamber musician. His recent guest soloist appearances include The Missouri State University, The University of Costa Rica, and The Missouri Symphony Society Orchestra. He has also appeared at numerous conferences, universities, and high schools across North and Central America. He is in the process of preparing a second solo tour of Central America and the Carribean in the summer of 2010. He earned his Doctor of Music degree at The Florida State University, received his Master of Music and Bachelor of Music degrees from the University of Kansas, and studied music education at Southeast Missouri State University. He is a member of the International Tuba Euphonium Association, Music Educators National Conference, The College Music Society, The Historic Brass Society, and Pi Kappa Lambda, a national music honor society. He is an artist-clinician for Kelly Mouthpieces.

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