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Tuba Ensemble will hold special performance to celebrate 55th anniversary
The School of Music at Tennessee Tech University will present the Tennessee Tech Tuba Ensemble in concert as they celebrate their 55th anniversary, on Saturday, April 16, at 3 p.m., in Tech’s Wattenbarger Auditorium.
This special performance will present the world premiere of eleven new compositions commissioned specifically for the 55th anniversary of the TTTE. In addition to the Tech Tuba Ensemble, a highly select alumni ensemble of graduates will also perform.
Founded in 1967 by R. Winston Morris, the TTTE and Morris established and defined the standards for tuba ensemble performance practices and have inspired the formation of like groups all over the world.
“Guess we’ve come a long way since the 1967 bunch sat on the stage of Derryberry Hall. We loved to practice in the classroom on the third floor above President Derryberry’s office and drive him crazy,” Morris said. “It was just a matter of time until he finally agreed to build the Bryan Fine Arts Building just to get us out of his hair!”
The TTTE is the most recorded ensemble of its kind in the world and this special performance will be recorded and released as their 31st commercially released recording.
“The award-winning TTTE is one of, if not the most successful performing collegiate ensembles in history,” Morris said.
The TTTE was recently selected by The Tennessee Board of Regents to receive the prestigious TBR Academic Excellence and Quality Award.
“The TTTE is very proud to be the only performing ensemble in the state of Tennessee to receive this award,” Morris said.
Recognized internationally as the leading group of its kind, the TTTE has an enviable record of thirty recording projects. The most recent recordings on the Mark Records label were submitted and accepted by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences to be included on its “Grammy Entry List.”
It has eight Carnegie Hall appearances, two World’s Fairs performances, numerous national and international conference engagements, a fifty-five-year history of performances from Preservation Hall in New Orleans to the Spoleto Festival in Charleston to the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.
“It is responsible for the composition and arrangement of more music for the tuba and euphonium than any other single source,” Morris said.
The subject of several doctoral dissertations, the TTTE most recently enjoyed wide-spread exposure via a nationally broadcast PBS documentary titled “TUBA U: Basso Profundo”.
The performance is free and open to the public. Wattenbarger Auditorium is in the Bryan Fine Arts Building, 1150 N. Dixie Avenue, Cookeville.