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ITEC Trip

Last Updated (Monday, 19 May 2008 08:02)
Written by Duncan Spry
Sunday, 16 July 2006 15:21

Articles - Personal Essays

by Duncan Spry - winner of the ITEC 2006 Young Artist Tuba Compeition


On a warmish winter morning, I arrived at the airport after travel delays due to fog in the morning. No flights were landing or disembarking.

3 hours later the plane departs Sydney. After a 12 ½ hour flight I arrived in San Francisco to discover that my tuba had never been put on the plane in Sydney. This event sent a shot of anxiety down my spine, but I had hope that they would deliver it to me before the competition began on Monday.

Due to the late departure of my flight from Sydney, I’d missed my connecting flight to Denver, and as a result had to hang around at the airport for 5 hours. Eventually, I arrived in Denver about 11pm, and after an hour long cab ride, I arrived at my cosy little B&B type hostel.

The next day I met up with my close friend and fellow tubist from the Sydney Con, Thomas Allely, and found somewhere decent to eat. We basically did the touristy thing until Sunday afternoon when we got another cab over to our dorm accommodation at Denver University. No sign of my tuba.

That afternoon/evening we arrived at the Lamont School of Music at the Newman Centre, DU, for the competitors meeting and official welcome to ITEC. That afternoon I managed to secure the use of a tuba from a fellow competitor, who luckily played the same model as me. Rehearsal with the accompanist for the semi-final round went smoothly that evening. I also met up with Alan Baer (Principal tuba, New York Philharmonic) that evening to organise a lesson time for the next day.

11am Monday came round and my tuba still hadn’t arrived in Denver despite being on the phone 5-6 times a day to United Airlines. Word had gotten round about the kid from down under whose tuba had been lost by the airlines, so when it came time to have my lesson with Alan, he let me play his tuba (Alan’s tuba is a new prototype that has just been developed by Meinl Weston, the Baer 6450 6/4 Cc. It’s the only one in existence), which I was very privileged to play for the whole hour and a bit! The lesson with Alan was invaluable to me. He taught me things which I will use to my advantage in the future.

After coming out of the lesson feeling a completely new player, I then was lucky enough to catch Gene Porkorny (Principal tuba, Chicago Symphony Orchestra) in Recital in the main concert hall. Man, what a musician! As expected, this recital was not to be missed. His demonstrations of phrasing, overall performance technique and presentation to the audience were outstanding. An excellent way to open the Conference. Still no sign of my tuba.

3pm came around with great anticipation to get on stage and show them what I could do. The semi-final round was a good eye opener to see what was going on in America, and boy, what an extremely talented bunch of young tubists! As expected though, at 6pm when the results of those who made the final were posted on the notice board, my name was up there. The evening concert was one like I’d never experienced before. The feature artists being the Denver Brass (A ten piece ensemble run by conference host Kathy Brantigan), along with some well known guest artists. First guest artist on stage was world renowned tuba soloist from Norway, Oystein Baadsvik. And boy this guy can play. He finished with an arrangement of his interesting work Fnugg, entitled Fnugg Blue for tuba solo and brass band. Fortunately, I was able to buy a copy of this from one of the exhibitors, so look out Willoughby band! Alas, no sign of my lost tuba.

After Oystein came the final soloist for the evening, whom I’m sure is a household name for most brass musicians, euphonium soloist Steven Mead. Steven came out with a look of slight confusion on his face, and as he approached the microphone the audience silenced in anticipation. He stood there in silence for a couple of seconds until finally, “What the bloody hell am I supposed to do after that”, were the words that escaped his mouth to rapturous applause from the packed concert hall. Mead’s response was to hold his own performing works of extreme technical difficulty and musicality, always adding his own style and flair to the performance. This was one of the best concerts of the week!

After arriving back at the dorm after the concert, the receptionist delivered me the message that my tuba had been delivered by the airline. I jumped for joy only to be told it had been delivered to the wrong address. So I hailed a cab and had to drive back uptown to the hostel I had stayed in previously to pick it up, but at least I had my tuba now!

Tuesday was another exciting day. I spent the day trying out new tubas at all the exhibits and buying new music and recordings, not to mention having two lessons this day. The first lesson I had with Oystein Baadsvik. I don’t really know what to say about this guy, except that I felt he took my solo playing up another level or 2 in the space of one lesson. He taught me many small details which allowed me to make so much more music out of some not very interesting material, and on top of that add my own style and flair to it!

After my lesson, the four finalists and a few other newly made friends went out for lunch at a nearby café. As a coffee lover I had to sample the local brew, and to my surprise when it came out it was in breakfast bowl sized mug, something you don’t see every day. In the afternoon I had organised to have a lesson with Dan Perantoni (tuba teacher at Indiana University), a former teacher of my current teacher Steve Rosse. This guy is a living legend, and has put more tuba students into jobs than I can count. We worked on Control, especially soft playing and making everything the same as if I was playing mf or f, as well as my contest pieces for the final.

The next day we met at 10.30 to draw lots for our playing positions in the final, and as always against all wishes I had to draw number 1! So at 11am I walked on stage to a small yet supportive audience of my tuba colleagues to extravagant applause from my fellow Sydney Con tubist Thomas. Satisfied with my performance I went into the audience and listened to the rest of the finalists. Finally the playing part of the competition was over and I could relax a bit. We took the bus back to the conference hotel that night to celebrate with the rest of the conference goers. This was one of the more laid back moments of the week, being able to have a meal with the rest of the competitors and then having a casual chat with the tuba legends was an experience I will never forget!

Thursday was spent in unwanted anxiousness in anticipation of the presentation ceremony that began at 1.30pm. Slowly, ITEA president Dennis Askew called out the semi-finalists of each competition to come on stage. Then came the important part, Louis Young (competitions organiser) called out the names of the finalists to come out on stage. When my name wasn’t called, it hit me that I’d either come first or second. Then as he came to the Young Artist Section, my nerves had never been greater my entire life. “In second place in the Young Artist tuba competition…….Genevieve Clarkson...” said Louis…..Then 3 seconds later……BOOOM!*&@!! It hit me. I had just won ITEC. “and the winner, Duncan Spry from Sydney Australia” “Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi” came the applause from Thomas as all the surrounding Americans began to laugh at both his comment and the look of excitement beaming off my face. So the boy whose tuba was lost, had to play the semi-final on someone else’s instrument, finishes up winning the contest. Surely this would be a tale to tell the folks back home!

That afternoon was spent on the phone making several expensive phone calls back home to Australia to the relatives. I couldn’t wait to get back home, but the fun wasn’t over yet! The following day, Friday, the final day of the conference was a completely different experience all together. In the afternoon we crowded old school buses, and were driven a few miles out of Denver to a place called Red Rocks Amphitheatre. As you can tell from the name of the place, it was a concert venue, but not just any venue! Red Rocks is a completely natural outdoor venue fairly high up in the hills surrounding Denver, where most of the rock n pop etc. concerts are held. The concert itself was a sight to see. Over 200 tuba players with tubas in toe, contributing to a mass tuba euphonium ensemble down in the first 5 rows of the amphitheatre. These guys were just amazing. Rehearsed by ITEA president David Askew, and conducted by tuba legend Harvey Phillips, it was something that I will look back on for the rest of my life! As well as the mass ensemble, all the jazz guys including Oystein Baadsvik, Jon Sass, Daniel ‘Sly’ Slipetsky and others had jam sessions up on the stage. This concert was, in a word, phenomenal. Think rock concert, rolling stones concert, but tubas. Something of either insanity or genius, it was simply fantastic.

That evening was again spent back in the lodge of the Conference hotel, wining and dining with friends and fellow tube legends before we had to call it quits and go back to the dorm. The next morning I was greeted by a friend of my mother’s friend, whose family lives in Colorado. She picked me up and we drove 2 hours up to the picturesque Rocky Mountains. What a place of natural beauty, nothing like the mountains back in Oz. In the middle of summer, there are still pockets of snow up there. After a nice lunch, we drove back down, avoiding the traffic we had encountered on the way up (it was the 4th of July, Independence Day long weekend), and arrived back at my dorm about 2.30pm, said our goodbyes, and waited for my shuttle to the airport. When a small sedan pulled up and asked if I’d ordered the shuttle my mouth dropped. How was I supposed to fit two tubas (I was taking one of Thomas’s home), plus my bags into this tiny car. So I had to ring for a maxi taxi, which came 20mins later fortunately, but the hassles didn’t stop there. While checking my bags in, I was told that I would have to pay $600US to get both tubas on the plane! I severely questioned this as it was only supposed to cost $35 per item for excess baggage. So I spoke to the floor manager, who wasn’t going to budge on the matter, and had a 30min discussion about the situation. When she left, another man came out and took her position on the floor, which I pleaded with and told him the exact same thing. Eventually he allowed me to get the tubas on for only $200, $100 a piece, but said if he lost his job I’d have to find him work in Sydney!

On Monday morning, having lost a day in transit, I arrived home to hugs and tears from my family awaiting my arrival at the airport. Although I was a bit chilly in my shorts and t-shirt in the cold Sydney morning weather!