Friday, Dec. 10, 2010

TubaChristmas | Holiday concert favorites go deep

A group of big-brass musicians will hit a high note this season with the lowest notes.

The third annual Myrtle Beach-area "TubaChristmas" concert happens at 4 p.m. Sunday at Myrtle Beach Seventh-day Adventist Church in Carolina Forest.

The coordinator, Daniel Johnson, principal tuba player with the Long Bay Symphony and assistant chairman of music at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, said about 20 to 25 fellow musicians usually turn out each year.

"We play for about 45 minutes or so," he said, explaining that most of the 15 carols selected have lyrics. "So we invite the audience to sing along for the second verse of each song."

Stephen Whisnant, director of music at Loris High School, is the guest conductor, Johnson said.

A church sanctuary differs from the Independence Mall in Wilmington, where Johnson headed the Cape Fear region's seventh annual TubaChristmas on Saturday, with 36 musicians from as far as Murrells Inlet and Raleigh, N.C. Still, he appreciates performing in both.

"Acoustically, it does sound more like a concert setting," he said of the former.

Resonance and reverberations enrich and layer the sounds inside a mall, though, Johnson said, adding, "It's a great way to attract people to perform."

The most challenging piece venerates a church organist whose life preceded the tuba's invention by a century.

Using its German pronunciation, Johnson said the tuba arrangement "Komm Susser Tod (Come Sweet Death)" by Johann Sebastian Bach marks the TubaChristmas way "to commemorate the Christmases past."

"We take advantage of music that is great," Johnson said.

Based at the Harvey Phillips Foundation in Bloomington, Ind., TubaChristmas began in 1974 with a concert in New York's Rockefeller Center, Johnson said, and it has gone global to places such as Canada and Switzerland.

Johnson called an adaptation of "Jingle Bells" his favorite TubaChristmas carol because of its melding with a John Philip Sousa march

"That gives it sort of a unique flavor," he said, "and it's a national emblem."

Year after year with TubaChristmas shows, Johnson said he sees the public's appreciation of the tuba's sound outside its standard band or orchestral context, where its long notes complement, but do not provide a melody.

"Part of the purpose of TubaChristmas is to celebrate that sound," Johnson said. "It's a very mellow sound, a very warm sound."

He said three members make up the tuba family. He went from lowest sound to highest: the contrabass, used in bands and symphonies; the bass; and euphonium.

A sousaphone simulates the contrabass and bass, but is wrapped around the player, hence its use in marching bands and its namesake, who composed many marches in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Johnson said he first picked up the tuba 30 years ago in seventh grade. Having already played piano in elementary school, he met the school band director, who spoke of the need for a tuba player.

"It was a chance for me to fit in with the group," Johnson said.

He hooked up with Myrtle Beach Seventh-day Adventist Church after one of its members saw a TubaChristmas in Wilmington.

Tammy Charles, the teacher of the church's one-room, private school, which serves grades one through eight, said she caught her first TubaChristmas when living in Maryland.

"I Googled to see where it was in our area," she said, remembering her first Christmas in the Grand Strand in 2007, and her meeting and staying in touch with Johnson through e-mail.

Charles finds the annual tuba troupe playing in the church a unique and "absolutely beautiful" experience.

"Normally, a tuba is something you hear in a band concert, with an emphasis in a certain area," she said. "Here, it has its own place, but of course, an orchestra wouldn't be complete without the tuba."

Thinking about other areas' TubaChristmas shows she's attended, Charles said she has seen the musicians span as young as 11 and into their 70s.

"I see this also as a way to unite the different generations through the Christmas spirit," she said.

"It's something for younger kids to participate in. If you have the breath to blow, you can do it."

With the annual tradition gaining an air of its own at her church, Charles summarized the overall feedback through three years: "They say, 'We loved the concert; we wished it lasted longer.'"

Contact STEVE PALISIN at 444-1764.