About 240 tubas will gather at Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square for Tubas Christmas. A quartet composed of Chuck Bolton, Heidi Aispuro, Dave Matthys and Charlie Violet joined us in studio to play a few pieces before their public concert on Saturday.
Rolando Hernandez / OPB
On Saturday afternoon, Portlanders near Pioneer Courthouse Square will be welcomed with the sound of Christmas music played by 200 tubas. This year marks the 31st year of Tuba Christmas in Portland, but it has been celebrated across the world for close to 50 years. Chuck Bolton is the conductor of the free public concert. He joins us to share the history of Tubas Christmas in Portland and why so many musicians across Oregon come to play. We’ll also hear a few holiday songs from a quartet in the studio played by Bolton, Heidi Aispuro, Dave Matthys and Charlie Violet.
This transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I am Dave Miller. On Saturday, people near Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square are going to be once again treated to an unmistakable Christmastime sound: not a choir caroling, not sleigh bells jingling, not little drummer boys para-pa-pum-pumming. It is about 240 tuba players gathered together for an annual celebration of the season in sonorous, low brass style. This year will mark Portland’s 31st Tuba Christmas, but it’s been celebrated around the world for close to 50 years. Chuck Bolton will once again be conducting the free public concert. We could not fit 240 tubas in our studio here, but we do have four of them ‒ a quartet ‒ with us right now. Let’s start in with a song that we can talk about Tuba Christmas:
[Tuba music playing . . . ]
Miller: That was Chuck Bolton, Charlie Violet, Dave Matthys, and Heidi Aispuro, four of the 240 low brass players who are going to be taking part in this year’s Tuba Christmas. Chuck Bolton is going to be the conductor of this majestic band and he is with us now. How did Tuba Christmas originally start?
Chuck Bolton: Well, Bill Bell was considered the father of the tuba. He was the tuba player in the New York Philharmonic, and when he passed away, one of his students, Harvey Phillips, decided he wanted to do something in memory of this great man in our music tradition. And so he started Tuba Christmas, it was around 1970. He got two very fine composers to write arrangements of Christmas carols that are now used by every Tuba Christmas all over the world.
Miller: Arrangements that don’t have all the extraneous parts like trumpets and clarinets or whatever?
Bolton: They wrote it for real instruments.
Miller: Does it feel good to finally be able to push back and punch back against tuba jokes, or feeling like you’re just sort of um-pah-pah part of a band? You get the melodies.
Bolton: Yes. And most of the people that come are bass tubas, because they never play the melody at their school bands and they always want to come, because you get the melody about half the time in this music.
Miller: I’m glad you mentioned bass tuba ‒ you put an emphasis there ‒ because even in front of me, it’s called Tuba Christmas, but there are at least two different kinds of instruments that you’re playing as a quartet right now. So what instruments are included under the umbrella of Tuba Christmas?
Bolton: Well, the euphonium players to my right, many of them get offended because we call them tenor tubas, but they’re part of the tuba family. So we have tenor tubas, bass tubas, and then we throw in things like sousaphones and baritones and many low brass valve instruments.
Miller: They look like basically the same shape, what you’re calling a euphonium, is it fair to call it just a smaller tuba that has a slightly higher range?
Bolton: Correct. It’s a smaller tuba, it’s just one octave higher.
Miller: Heidi Aispuro, you are one of the euphonium players, that you sort of smirked when it’s a smaller tuba. But do you have a different definition of your instrument?
Heidi Aispuro: Not really. I think it’s actually pretty accurate, especially for euphonium as opposed to a baritone horn. Now we’re getting really technical, but in technical terms, also a euphonium or baritone horn is one octave higher than a B-flat bass or contrabass tuba.
Miller: How did you become a euphonium player? What attracted you to this instrument?
Aispuro: Oh my gosh, that’s such a long convoluted story. I’m in sheep’s clothing here. I started on the saxophone, played bassoon, and euphonium just kind of came eventually, if you want to hear this story. This is the story I tell people: I was playing in high school band, I’m sitting on bassoon and we’re playing Holst’s Second Suite in F. And if you’re a band person, you know there’s a big euphonium solo, and of course the school, I won’t say what school I went to, or what time, but whoever was on the euphonium part was just woofing it . . .
Miller: All these years later, you still want to maintain someone’s anonymity as a kindness.
Aispuro: They were just having a hard time with it. It wasn’t their main instrument either. They were a trombone player, I think. And so they were having a hard time with it, and I listened to a recording of – I think it was probably North Texas or something like that – a really good college man playing it. And I went, ‘oh, that’s what that instrument is supposed to sound like. That’s a really beautiful sounding instrument.’ And I was already doubling and I kind of started tinkering with trumpet already. So our school had an extra euphonium and I just decided to pick one up, and fell in love with it ever since.
Miller: And you turned your back on reeds and stuck with brass.
Aispuro: Reeds are expensive. It’s a lot of upkeep.
Miller: Chuck, what about you? How did you become a tuba player?
Bolton: Well, I started band in the fourth grade on trumpet, and I was a terrible trumpet player. Out of 12 kids, I was the 12th chair for three years. And the band director needed a tuba player and I said, ‘I’ll try it.’ I was in the eighth grade and I did. And a month later I was first chair tuba in a middle school, all-Portland honor band.
Miller: As respectfully as I can, was that because you were naturally better at tuba, or there was just less competition.
Bolton: That was very tactful! No, basically instruments fit people. I just couldn’t play the high register on trumpet. And I fit. There’s a little joke in the music world about euphonium players. They say, ‘what do they call a last-chair, third trumpet player in the band? A treble clef euphonium player.’
Miller: Nothing like music humor to get the audience laughing. Let’s hear another song. What do you have for us now?
Bolton: ‘Go Tell It on the Mountain.’
[Tuba music playing . . . ]
Miller: We’ve had a lot of musicians that play in the studio over the years, but I have never physically felt the music, literally in my chest, the way I am right now – with just four of you. What’s it like when there are hundreds of you low brass players all playing together?
Bolton: Well, I was surprised actually the first time I heard it because it’s loud but it doesn’t feel loud. It’s just very resonant and big and you can actually feel it. It’s not like trumpets, that have a much more piercing sound, or piccolo’s or flute. So when you hear it, it’s just a big, not really a rumble but that kind of a sound.
Miller: Is that one of the reasons you think that there isn’t, that I know of, a Trumpet Christmas with 300 trumpeters getting together in Pioneer Courthouse Square?
Bolton: Well possibly. Or it could be that the ego of the trumpet players wouldn’t allow anybody to play third.
Miller: So you mentioned earlier, Chuck, how this started about 50 years ago around 1970. Who brought Tuba Christmas to Portland?
Bolton: That was Dr. John Keil Richards. He was the principal tuba player in the Oregon Symphony for over 50 years, but he’s the one that got this started. It was easy for him to start it because he was well known and well liked and well respected. So when he started it, a bunch of people showed up the first time.
Miller: Were you there that first time?
Bolton: Yes, I was.
Miller: What brought you there?
Bolton: John. He was my teacher, and I’ve played in every Tuba Christmas except two when John had me subbing in the symphony while he was conducting the group because Tuba Christmas is more important than the Oregon Symphony…
Miller: For him…
Bolton: For him.
Miller: As the creator. So then you went to the symphony that year…
Bolton: Yes, and played.
Miller: How does Portland’s version of Tuba Christmas compare to other cities? Heidi, have you seen Tuba Christmas in other places?
Aispuro: Yeah. I used to go to the Salem ones back when I was in high school, which actually John Richards used to do as well. But I did also live in Boston for a couple of years, and I tell you I only went once because it just was not, it was not as epic… as the Portland one…
Miller: That’s a much bigger city in a much bigger metropolitan area – millions of people there.
Aispuro: Yeah.
Miller: And yet they couldn’t draw the same number of tuba players there?
Aispuro: Yeah, I’m not really sure why. It could be maybe that they– I think they always, I believe they always do it Thanksgiving weekend, so maybe it’s perhaps that a lot of… because, you know, there’s so many music schools in Boston. But I think maybe, because it’s that weekend, a lot of people choose not to do it. Or maybe because they’re conservatory students, they’re too good to do something like Tuba Christmas or something like that. I’m not really sure. But, yeah, we only played numbers out of the book, just out of the book only. And it was a lot smaller, like maybe 80 people I want to say. I’m not sure.
Bolton: One of the things that’s different too is we use a vocalist on a few numbers to add variety. And I get door prizes from the different music stores in town. Many of them decorate their instruments and we have the best decorated – the audience chooses…
Miller: Their costumes too, right?
Bolton: Yes, costumes. Absolutely.
Miller: Do you wear costumes?
Bolton: No. Thank you.
Miller: But there are, there’s a contest for the best…
Bolton: Yes.
Miller: …best costumed tubaist.
Bolton: And, you know, the horn with the most dents, things like that… Oldest player, youngest player.
Miller: The quartet we have today is Heidi Aispuro, Dave Matthys, Charlie Violet and Chuck Bolton, who is also the conductor of Tuba Christmas. Let’s hear another song. What do you have for us?
Bolton: Let’s do a slow one. Let’s do ‘Silent Night.’
[Tuba music playing . . . ]
Miller: That is four members of the, what is going to be, 240 low brass players for this year’s edition, the 31st version of Portland’s Tuba Christmas at Pioneer Courthouse Square, Saturday from 1:30 to 3. Chuck, how did the pandemic affect or change Tuba Christmas in the last couple of years?
Bolton: Well it destroyed it for one year. We didn’t even have it one year, because of COVID and not getting a large group together. Small groups played on street corners around Portland. But it hit our numbers. We were over 300 for a number of years, up to about maybe 340. Then when we restarted again – because of COVID, we needed to be respectful of that – we started last year with 150.
Miller: This year 240.
Bolton: Yes.
Miller: What’s the hope for next year?
Bolton: Well, it’d be nice to get back to about 300. Portland’s one of the largest in the world. There’s about four or five in the United States that are big, but we’re one of the biggest ones.
Miller: How far away do your players come from? Can you get 340 tuba players just from Portland alone?
Bolton: We probably could, but actually a lot of people come to this one because it is large, and we have a good audience, and it’s well run. The people of Pioneer Courthouse Square do a great job of helping to organize this.
Miller: So it’s a kind of regional magnet for low brass.
Bolton: Yeah, exactly.
Miller: What’s kept you doing this year after year?
Bolton: It’s music and tuba. I mean what else could be better? I mean in the Christmas season it’s kind of nice. People like to gather together at Christmas, and it’s kind of a nice way for people in Portland to gather together.
Miller: Let’s hear one more song if you all don’t mind.
Bolton: Okay.
[Tuba music playing . . . ]
Miller: What was the part that wasn’t ‘Jingle Bells’ in there, in the middle?
Bolton: It was the break strain of a march by E. E. Bagley called the ‘National Emblem.’
Miller: Huh, and then back to ‘Jingle Bells.’
Bolton: Yes.
Miller: Charlie Violet, Dave Matthys, Heidi Aispuro and Chuck Bolton, thank you so much.
Bolton: Thank you.
Miller: That was our four of the 240 euphonium or tuba or similar style instruments who are going to all be coming together on Saturday from 1 to 3 at Pioneer Courthouse Square as part of this year’s Tuba Christmas.
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