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'Tubapalooza' will bring out the big brass

By Loren Keller

The Eastern Iowa Brass Band will bring its back row front-and-center Saturday in a rare performance that will center on the largest and lowest pitched of brass instruments: the tuba.

A total of seven tubas will be featured at the “Tubapalooza 2008” show at 7:30 p.m. in the Mt. Vernon District Auditorium.

Music director Casey Thomas says the band’s performance will feature a tuba soloist and a tuba quartet.

“That is rare. Stereotyically the tubas stay in the back row and they play their low notes and that’s about it,” says Thomas, who plays the euphonium, a smaller version of the large brass instrument also known as the baritone.

The band will play a range of music, including marches, Broadway music, chorales and original music specifically written for brass bands. A tuba solo will open the song “Anything You Can Do” from the Broadway play “Annie Get Your Gun.”

Thomas, an adjunct instructor of low brass at Cornell College and St. Ambrose University in Davenport who is pursuing a masters and doctorate of musical arts in trombone performance from the UI, says tuba-themed spring concert is one of the band’s three subscription performances this year.

“Since I became music director my idea was to feature one instrument,” he says. “The last subscription concert we featured a trombone.”

The concert will also feature John Manning, a founding member of the Atlantic Brass Quintet who serves on the UI faculty and will soon release his debut solo recording, Four Corners: Tuba Music From Around the World.

Tickets, $10 for adults and $4 for students, will be available at the door.