TTU tuba ensemble presents ‘blow-out’ spring concert April 14
The highly acclaimed tuba ensemble from Tennessee Tech University is celebrating its 43rd year of performances. The group is internationally recognized as the leading ensemble of its kind. It is the most recorded tuba ensemble ever with 25 recording projects to its credit.
The 2010 spring program is classically oriented and represents one of the more technically difficult programs attempted by the ensemble, Morris said.
Following a beautiful transcription of the famous “Elsa’s Procession to the Cathedral” by Richard Wager, the program will feature Cory Allen, senior solo tubist from Colp, Ill., performing one of the most difficult solos ever attempted by a tuba player.
“One of the reasons it is so difficult for tuba is that it was composed almost 300 years ago for solo violin,” Morris said. The piece is the most famous composition by Italian Baroque composer Antonio Vivaldi, the three-movement “Winter” from “The Four Seasons,” in this case for solo tuba and tuba ensemble accompaniment.
The audience will need to hold onto their seats for the third piece on the program: “Richter 7.8” by Canadian composer Thomas Schudel. Morris notes that this piece was planned for the program in December 2009 before the recent devastating earthquakes in Haiti and elsewhere. Nevertheless, this extremely brutal antiphonal atonal composition for 12-part tuba/euphonium ensemble certainly represents musically what an earthquake might sound like in the concert hall.
“The Liberation of Sisyphus” by Wisconsin tubist/composer John Stevens is to the 21st century tubist what the Vivaldi “Winter” was to the 18th century violinist. This extremely challenging piece for solo tuba and eight-part euphonium/tuba ensemble will be performed by senior tuba major Kyle Newland from Spring City.
The “Concerto Basso for Tuba Ensemble” by retired University of Virginia composer Walter Ross is a major three-movement composition composed in 1975 for the Tennessee Tech Tuba Ensemble for its first Carnegie Hall performance. The piece features a “solo” quartet accompanied by the rest of the tuba ensemble in this 20th century version of a concerto grosso.
“Mars, The Bringer of War” from Gustav Holst’s “The Planets” is a perennial audience pleaser. The tuba ensemble version to be performed was transcribed by former ensemble member and Chattanooga School of the Arts Band Director David Butler.
“There is a possibility of a special video treat designed to accompany ‘Mars’ if all the planets align in proper position on April 14th,” Morris said.
The program will conclude with special guests from Joshua Hauser’s TTU trombone studio, Trombones at Tech, joining all the tubas for a low-brass, blow-out performance of “Two Interplays” by well-known composer Thom Ritter George.
The Tennessee Tech Tuba Ensemble has performed throughout the eastern half of the United States from New Orleans to Florida and Chicago to New York. The ensemble has been featured in seven Carnegie Hall performances since 1976. Founded in 1967 by director and current conductor R. Winston Morris, the group most recently enjoyed national exposure thanks to award-winning local independent television producer Todd Jarrell in conjunction with Cookeville’s public television WCTE. “TUBA U: Basso Profundo” has been broadcast via national public television throughout the United States.
The tuba ensemble performs virtually every type of music from Bach to pop, from Sousa to Jazz. The ensemble’s recordings reflect this wide variety. The recordings include “TTTE and All that Jazz” and “Legacy,” a documentation of the 40th anniversary performance in 2007 at Carnegie Hall.
