TubaChristmas VI

     Friday, December 9, 2022
8:00PM
West Side Presbyterian Church

Prelude Concert
7:30 PM

Midland Park High School Band
David Marks, Director

A fun night of music is sure to delight with guest ensemble Orpheus Club Men’s Chorus, crowd favorite TubaChristmas, and Modest Mussorgsky’s timeless classic “Pictures at an Exhibition”.

Guest Ensemble

TUBACHRISTMAS was conceived in 1974 by Harvey Phillips as a tribute to his teacher and mentor William J. Bell, born on Christmas Day, 1902. The first TUBACHRISTMAS was conducted by Paul Lavalle in New York City’s Rockefeller Plaza Ice Rink on Sunday, December 22, 1974. Since then, tuba and euphonium players of all ages have taken part in TUBACHRISTMAS events across the globe each holiday season.

2022 marks the sixth year that the NJWS has hosted an event. Our audience members love the unique sound experience of being surrounded by low brass players performing holiday classics.

On October 11, 1909, eight men met at the Ridgewood home of Frank R. Pawley to discuss a men’s singing club. A week later, 10 men gathered in the village library, a room in the First National Bank Building. The group paid 75 cents per night for the room and began singing together, with Dewitt Clinton, Jr., as director. The Orpheus Club Men’s Chorus was born.

Today, the Orpheus Club Men’s Chorus remains a singing force for good. With about 50 singers from New York and New Jersey, the club counts on its music to inspire, inform, entertain and surprise the audience.

Modest Mussorgsky was inspired to compose his piano work ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ after attending an exhibition of artwork by his friend and painter Viktor Hartmann in 1874. The piece was a musical illustration of a person visiting the exhibition and looking at ten of the drawings and watercolors. The work was not published until five years after the composer’s death, when an edition by composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was published.

Many composers have subsequently created arrangements of the work ranging from chamber orchestra to solo organ to jazz orchestra. However, Maurice Ravel’s orchestration, produced in 1922, is the most popular and still performed regularly across the globe.

Under the baton of Mr. David Marks, the Midland Park High School Wind Ensemble is composed of young musicians between ninth and twelfth grade. The Midland Park High School Band Program regularly performs both locally and nationally, including past concerts at Lincoln Center and the USS Intrepid, and in Nashville and Baltimore.

We are pleased to welcome them back as a prelude ensemble for our December 9th concert.

In September 2021, Midland Park High School band director David Marks began to collaborate with composer Taylor Goodson. Mr. Goodson’s sister, Sarah, is a double lung transplant recipient and NJ Sharing Network volunteer, and Connor Opderbeck, a student at Midland Park High School, had received a life-saving heart transplant that summer. Mr. Goodson and Mr. Marks discussed ways to incorporate the powerful message of organ and tissue donation and transplantation into a composition for the band.

The result was”The Gift”, a composition that uses music to express the emotions and experiences of a transplant recipient. The first 2/3 of the musical piece only uses seven notes instead of the typical eight notes to suggest there is a missing heartbeat. As the song progresses, the eighth note is added in to show the life-saving transplant has been completed and the heart is beating properly.

Midland Park High School and the composition received the National Award for Educational Excellence at the 2022 Donate For Life National Conference.

All New Jersey Wind Symphony Subscription Concerts are held at the West Side Presbyterian Church, Ridgewood, NJ.  West Side Presbyterian Church is fully ADA compliant providing handicap accessible entry to the concert venue as well as bathroom facilities. Important signage and directions are presented in braille..