Tubas and Their Kin Hold Keys to Noteworthy Holiday Event

As any psychiatrist can tell you, this is a treacherous time of year. People forget that dysfunctional family is redundant and begin drinking heavily at the prospect of the inevitable in-gathering of relatives. That, or they sink into depression because key family members are no longer around to be dreaded. And don’t ask about the mall. This month the population density of the average American shopping center could induce claustrophobia in an astronaut.

So how to get into the spirit of the holidays if you’d rather have your tongue pierced than go see “The Grinch”? There’s always Tuba Christmas on Saturday in Glendale.

Jim Self is the local organizer of this annual celebration of the Yuletide potential of the tuba and its unwieldy cousins, the sousaphone, euphonium, baritone horn and helicon. The Glendale version of Tuba Christmas, held in more than 150 cities across the country, will feature more than 200 tuba players of varying degrees of expertise.

“This is our 25th year in Los Angeles,” says Self, of the free concert featuring hymns and carols specially arranged for the James Earl Jones of instruments. “It’s a national tradition that’s been going on for 27 years. It was organized by my former teacher Harvey Phillips, who was kind of the guru of tuba players.”

Phillips had no idea Tuba Christmas would catch on nationwide when he held the first concert in 1973 in New York City’s Rockefeller Center. Phillips conceived it to honor his own tuba teacher and friend, the late William Bell, who had played tuba in Arturo Toscanini’s NBC Orchestra. It was no accident that the event was a Christmas concert: Bell was born on Christmas Day, 1903.

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In the spirit of that first Tuba Christmas, participants play holiday music arranged specifically for tuba by composer Alec Wilder, who died on Christmas Day in 1980. Wilder’s arrangements, which exploit the deep, resonant tones that the tuba can make, go a long way toward overcoming its popular reputation as an almost comic instrument usually relegated to the orchestra’s periphery.

Again and again, observers compare the best music of Tuba Christmas to the sound of a gifted men’s choir. Most of the time, Self says, people tend to dismiss the brass instrument’s sound as nothing but oom-pah. But in capable hands it’s a remarkably versatile instrument. And when first-rate players perform the right repertoire, he says, “It’s a glorious sound, really.”

Self should know. He plays the tuba in several local orchestras, including the Hollywood Bowl’s and the L.A. Opera’s, and he is also one of the few tuba players who makes a living in Hollywood. Self can be heard in almost 1,000 films, including, most recently, “The Grinch.” His best-known role: The voice of the alien mother ship in Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”

When people of a certain age think of Self’s preferred instrument, they recall “Tubby the Tuba,” the ubiquitous children’s book and record that parents of the 1940s and ‘50s hoped would turn their youngsters into lifelong symphony buffs. (According to Marjorie Kassorla, of Pages children’s bookstore in Tarzana, parents who want to teach music appreciation to today’s kids are snapping up copies of John Lithgow’s “The Remarkable Farkle McBride,” which the actor-author has performed in concert and which will soon be released with a companion CD.)

Do tuba players hate Tubby the way redheads hate Bozo the Clown? Self laughs and says some do resent the stereotype promulgated by Tubby of the tuba as a sad sack of an instrument that never gets to play the melody or other flashy stuff in the orchestra. Self points out that he routinely plays melody, and so will the amateurs and professionals who sign up for Tuba Christmas.

Brian Ellis, president of the Glendale Symphony Orchestra Assn., had the idea of bringing this year’s Tuba Christmas to Brand Boulevard, outside the Alex Theatre. In the past, the free concert has been held downtown at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and even in the parking lot of the L.A. Zoo.

Ellis thought the event would be fun in its own right and also might encourage attendees to stay for the Glendale Orchestra’s holiday concert. Tuba Christmas will start at 6:15 p.m. The Glendale Orchestra’s evening of “Glorious Music” by Bach, Rachmaninoff, Mendelssohn and Haydn begins at 8 p.m. at the Alex.

According to Ellis, the highlight of the orchestra program will be Howard Zhang’s performance of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, Opus 64. A much-lauded 15-year-old virtuoso, Zhang made his orchestra debut at the age of 9 and now studies at Juilliard.

Ellis says the orchestra association will be handing out so-called Bach bucks at Tuba Christmas--coupons good for $5 off the price of tickets to the “Glorious Music” program, which are $15 to $45.

As to Tuba Christmas, some of its pleasures are visual, not aural, Ellis says: “They come in costume, they come with lights on their tubas, they get wacky.”

Self agrees. Participants get all Christmasy, usually donning special scarves and stocking caps sold for the occasion. “A whole bunch of people decorate their tubas with lights and battery packs and tinsel,” he explains. “It’s cool. It’s very festive.”

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The people attempting to hold their tubas and play at the same time will range in age from 8 to 80 and include a father and son who have never missed a Southern California Tuba Christmas. Among the professionals performing: a quartet called the Tubadours.

The audience is invited to sing along. And, Self notes, the repertoire includes Hanukkah songs, as well as “Silent Night,” “Deck the Halls” and other Christmas classics.

A wag writing about a Tuba Christmas past in the Northeast described it as a concert in the key of b-r-r-r. In Glendale there will be palm trees as well as Christmas trees, the gloves and scarves will be strictly optional and anyone dreaming of a white Christmas is sure to be disappointed.

Happy holidays, Southern California style!

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For information about playing in Tuba Christmas, call Jim Self at (323) 656-6510 or visit https://www.bassethoundmusic.com. The Alex Theatre is at 216 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale. Tickets for the orchestra program are available at the box office, at TeleCharge (800) 233-3123 or on-line at https://www.glendalesymphony.org.

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Spotlight runs every Friday. Patricia Ward Biederman can be reached at valley.news@latimes.com.