On the last day of fall classes 50 years ago, the December weather was so delightful that University of Iowa School of Music professor Bob Yeats and his tuba students decided to stage a spontaneous holiday concert on the Pentacrest lawn.
Their impromptu performance has since grown into a cherished annual UI holiday tradition. Hundreds of people now gather each December to hear brass musicians in holiday costumes perform on the Old Capitol steps. While UI students make up most of the performers, anyone with a tuba, sousaphone, or euphonium is welcome to join.
“To me, this is about how I can help the community and let my students have fun,” says School of Music professor John Manning, who since 2004 has led the Holiday Tubas concert in a Santa suit, conducting with a candy cane. “It’s fellowship, it’s philanthropy, it’s community, and there’s always lots of smiles.”
The traditions have changed a little over the decades. Many concertgoers now bring donations of unwrapped toys for the Iowa City Domestic Violence Intervention Program, a change Manning pioneered. After the performance, guests are welcomed into the Old Capitol Museum to warm up, enjoy cookies, and explore the galleries.
“It is fitting for this tradition so full of heart to take place at the heart of our campus,” says Pentacrest Museums Director Liz Crooks. “We look forward to this joy-filled event each year with our community.”
For years, Yeats opened the concerts with the theme from the 1960s cartoon show Underdog — a joking nod to the tuba’s also-ran status. Manning opens with “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas,” written by Iowa native and Music Man composer Meredith Willson. (The holiday classic also shares a melodic structure with the “Iowa Fight Song,” which Willson also wrote).
December weather in Iowa can be unpredictable. Yeats recalls using music stands to clear snow off the steps — and some concert days that were so frigid the musicians cycled in and out of Old Capitol to keep the valves on their instruments from seizing up. Other years are balmy, with players needing sunglasses to block the sun’s reflections from their shiny brass instruments.
For four years after the 2001 Old Capitol fire, the concert relocated to the steps of Macbride Hall at the entrance to the Museum of Natural History. Since Old Cap’s reopening in 2006, the tradition has remained on the east steps of the building.
Adding to the fun, the musicians bring creative and unique arrangements to each year’s gathering. Yeats, who retired in 2003, says one year included the surprise addition of an electric guitar — powered by a very long extension cord — when the band added Elvis Presley’s “Blue Christmas” to the set list. Another year, one of the students donned a chicken suit and danced in the snow during a Chicken-Dance-inspired arrangement.
What hasn’t changed is a chance to hear world-class musicians play some of the lighter portions of the holiday oeuvre for free. Manning, who has performed in Carnegie Hall and toured with orchestras around the world, has put together a program that includes the Alvin and the Chipmunks song, “Christmas”; the 1979 holiday novelty hit, “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer”; and “Somewhere in My Memory” from the movie Home Alone.
Yeats recalls dashing one year from the Holiday Tubas concert to Hancher Auditorium, his hair still full of white powder from playing Santa, to play in the orchestra for the renowned Joffrey Ballet.
“It’s just fun,” Yeats says of the tradition he created by chance. “What’s crazier than a bunch of tuba payers standing out in the cold playing silly Christmas songs?”
Enjoy this gallery of photos captured by University of Iowa photographer Tim Schoon from this year's Holiday Tubas performance on Friday, Dec. 13.
