Text and Photographs by K.B. Dixon
Improbable as it sounds (pun intended), Tuba Christmas is a real thing. An inspired creation, it is a mix of Santa Claus and Surrealism. An annual event in Portland since 1991, it features some 300 or so tubas galumphing their way through the Christmas songbook—Hark the Herald Angels Sing, O Come All Ye Faithful, The First Noel, etc., etc. It is a performance-art piece transfigured by the comedy of its cockamamie premise into an old-fashioned bit of mainstream fun.
This showcase for big winds was originally conceived (in what must have been a psychoanalytically significant fever-dream) by Harvey Phillips, “Titan of the Tuba,” in New York in 1974 as a tribute to William Bell, his teacher and mentor. Initially a sort of public-relations stunt to gain the poor old put-upon tuba (the Rodney Dangerfield of the brass section) a little harmless recognition, it evolved quickly over the years into a national phenomenon. There are Tuba Christmases everywhere now from Kennebunkport, Maine, to Elkhart, Indiana, to Sacramento, California.
Mr. Phillips—the first tubist to be inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame—was dedicated to this sea-creature of an instrument. He formed a foundation (the Harvey Phillips Foundation) to address all things tuba. It is active to this day with scholarships, lectures, clinics, and public performances financed by Tuba Christmas registration fees. If every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings, every time a sousaphone oompahs Silent Night a subsidized tuba player gets a cleaning snake (or a jar of tuning-slide grease).
Mining the preposterous for pleasure, this basso extravaganza has become a treasured local tradition. The Tuba Christmas in Pioneer Courthouse Square this year will be Portland’s 28th. The sound of B-flat thunder rumbling slowly up through 18 feet of intestinal tubing on its way to Frosty the Snowman will put a smile on even the most curmudgeonous face.
Tuba Christmas
- Pioneer Courthouse Square, 701 S.W. Sixth Ave. Portland
- December 8, 1:30 to 3:00 p.m.
- Free
Conference, 2012
Warm-up, 2017
          Elf & Friend, 2014
Fedora & Tuba, 2017
Christmas Jumpsuit, 2014
Reindeer, 2017
Waiting Patiently, 2012
Hedgehog, 2014
Mustache & Mutt, 2012
Heart & Antlers, 2017
A Tautology of Tubas, 2017
Embouchure, 2014
Harmonic Convergence, 2012
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Portland writer and photographer K.B. Dixon’s new book Too True: Essays on Photography was recently honored as a Finalist in the Art category of the 2018 Best Book Awards.