by Molly Meeks |

On December 13, the Kauffman Center held a unique brand of Christmas tunes, played by some unlikely instruments. Tuba and baritone players from across the country all gather at a common venue to spread some Christmas cheer.

“Basically, we all get together in one place [the Kauffman] and play some classic Christmas music,” sophomore Davis Parry said.

Tuba Christmas is an incredibly popular event, people from all over the Midwest come to see the concert. This year, for the first time, the event became so popular that audience members were required to reserve their tickets ahead of time. Every performance, including the performance on December 13, gathers such large crowds, every seat in the theatre is guaranteed to be filled.

This year there was such a large number of musicians participating in the concert, the original one day performance was extended to a two day event. Instead of playing on the original date, Friday December 14, Liberty and over 300 other tuba/baritone players were moved to perform on December 13.

“People come from states away, I think the furthest anyone has come for Tuba Christmas is California,” junior Allie Foster said, “We fill the entire place.”

Generally, tuba and baritone players are not the instruments most would expect to play Christmas music, especially not by themselves. This event provides the time and place for these less common instruments to shine, whereas in an ordinary band performance they could lose attention to more prominent instruments.

The event lasted all day, students left at the beginning of the school day and stayed at the Kauffman for the rest of the day.

“We leave sometime during first hour and don’t get back to school until near the end of seventh hour,” Parry said, “we get to spend the entire day at the Kauffman.”

Musicians practice their music for the concert until, finally, at the end of the day, they put on a huge concert featuring popular holiday songs.

“We get a book of music when we go there and there are some pretty difficult songs and also some really easy songs, Foster said, “all the music is pretty popular.”

Conflicts do arise when it comes to missing the entire day of school. Tuba Christmas occurred the week before finals, meaning students could potentially miss a day of new material or review. Also, this year Tuba Christmas happened the same day as all-district and honorable mention band performances. Students who were in both were almost immediately rushed from the Kauffman Center to Park Hill High School for another performance.

Tuba Christmas was a success and spread Christmas cheer to its packed theatre. Anyone who missed out will have to wait for December 2013 when tubas and baritones make another one of their annual performances.