First International TUBA Symposium

[Jperry1466]

Found a bit of history while cleaning out my files today, this brochure from the 1973 Tuba Symposium. Don't know how I came by this, since I wasn't there. It was the end of my first semester in grad school at Kentucky, so I probably didn't have the $75 fee or a place to stay. I did get to go to the Southeast Regional symposium at Tennessee the next year, though.

[bloke]

I went to the Knoxville thing and 74, and seem to remember a meager pair of instrument displays via a couple of vendors.

I think I rode there with my teacher, and it was just the two of us. We were in his ‘73 Volvo. I’m thinking that we must’ve left after school or something, and drove during the evening and night - doing the 5-hour trip over there on I-40.

related:
Last night, I was scouring file cabinets (to no avail) for my part 1 book to the trombone/bassoon/cello Blume duet book, and came across a bunch of old TUBA Journals…the original small sized ones.

[Jperry1466]

I went to the Knoxville thing and 74, and seem to remember a meager pair of instrument displays via a couple of vendors.

I think I rode there with my teacher, and it was just the two of us. We were in his ‘73 Volvo. I’m thinking that we must’ve left after school or something, and drove during the evening and night - doing the 5-hour trip over there on I-40.

related:
Last night, I was scouring file cabinets (to no avail) for my part 1 book to the trombone/bassoon/cello Blume duet book, and came across a bunch of old TUBA Journals…the original small sized ones.

I have 4 of those Journals, myself from 74 and 75. Similar to your story, in the spring of 74, Conner was judging the state solo contest in Tennessee at Martin and Memphis. He had lined up an interview for me for the Memphis State tuba job, so I accompanied him on the trip. The dept. head didn't bother to show up for that appointment, so we knew it had been filled - they just had to go through the motions. Anyway, we drove all night back to Lexington, taking turns at the wheel of his 72 Toyota. About 2:00 am, I was asleep in the passenger seat and woke up as Rex had fallen asleep at the wheel and was going 60 mph on the grass median. I took over and drove the rest of the night; if he had driven into one of those ravines, no one would have found the bodies. I didn't tell my wife about it for a couple of months.

[edfirth]

I was there. The West Point Band offered administrative leave to any of the tuba players so four tuba players and one baritone player went. It was very cool but I'd had my fill by the third day. And after reading this thread I found the folder that everyone got with all of the events and the players involved plus the advertisements for horns. My favorite memories were of Bob Tucci, who was in a trio with Harvey and Les Varner, whose sound is still rattling around in my head. And Don Harry, who played one of those cello sonatas and circular breathed the whole thing on a 186 C with a clanky first valve. There were quite a few vendors there and my Cerveny kaiser C was at Walter Sear's booth as he didn't have any in stock. And while browsing through the folder I came upon a page with Sam Pilafian's number written down. We had chatted with him, he had recently arrived in NY, about a tuba quartet since he had done alot of those at Miami with Connie Weldon...she was also there, as were Phil Catlenet, Merle Evans, Abe Torchinsky, and a whole lot more. I would love to share this stuff with you good folks but I'm a caveman with computers so if someone out there is willing to take this stuff and post it here I'd be happy to send it to you. The whole thing was of course, dedicated to Mr. Bell who had recently passed.That's all I got, all the best to you all, Ed