Tuba

BSO presents 'Messiah'Conductor Edward Polochick returns to lead the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in a yuletide tradition, Handel's "Messiah," tomorrow and Saturday at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, 1212 Cathedral St. Guest soloists are soprano Nicole Heaston, mezzo-soprano Norine Burgess and baritone Christopher Schaldenbrand. Concert time is 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20-$40. Call 410-783-8000.Last show for Love RiotBid farewell to Love Riot when the area rock band performs its last concert, a holiday party, at 10 p.m. Saturday at Fletchers, 701 S. Bond St. in Fells Point.

Edward R. Goldstein, a 43-year-old music teacher from Pikesville, has his beloved $10,000 Holton tuba back.The instrument was returned about 48 hours after it was stolen from his van while he and his family shopped in Northwest Baltimore on Monday afternoon."

With trumpets and tubas, drums and drum majors, students played into the night at Towson University yesterday -- no mere football halftime show, but the whole show.Hundreds of young musicians in marching bands from 45 Maryland high schools filled Minnegan Stadium with color and sound for the 12th annual Maryland State Band Championships, in a musical quest for trophies and recognition they might not get at their schools.Before an estimated crowd of 8,000, the bands formed and reformed in choreographed patterns, becoming circles and squares and rectangles.

Edward Goldstein was trying to save a few bucks Monday by shopping at a West Belvedere Avenue thrift store. But when he left the store, the professional musician found the rear window of his Oldsmobile van broken and his $10,000 tuba missing."

The year that she turned 6, Melody Mooner said, "I want to take lessons. I want to be good at something special. But I don't know what."In January, Mother Mooner took her skating, but Melody said, "I don't think so."I hate falling down on the cold ice."In February, Father Mooner sent her to ski school, but Melody said, "I don't think so."I could never go down hills so fast."In March, Grandmother Mooner paid for ballet lessons, but Melody said, "I don't think so."All that twirling makes me dizzy.

Laurie Sokoloff has always known precisely how she would act if confronted by a robber."You can have my car, you can have my purse, you can have my cat -- even though I love my cat," said Sokoloff, who has played the piccolo with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra for 30 years. "But if it were my piccolo, I'd hesitate, and I know that would pose a danger to me."At 7: 35 p.m. Friday, Sokoloff was mugged at Cathedral and Biddle streets as she left her car and walked toward Meyerhoff Symphony Hall.

Somewhere in the city they call Baltimore is a small tuba, and we have to find it. If you see a small tuba -- "baritone" is the actual name of the instrument -- being carried by someone who looks suspiciously un-small-tuba-person-like, please take some mental notes and give me a call. We're trying to get a 12-year-old boy's baritone back, and it's not going to be easy.I'm in a jam, see. I told his momma I'd take the case (though actually the thief took the case, with the baritone inside).

Think about hearing the Beatles' hit "I Saw Her Standing There" played as a cornet solo; or the old Led Zeppelin classic "Stairway to Heaven" as a tuba and banjo duet. Now, throw in some accordion, washboard and traditional jazz, and you have the Dixie Power Trio.But the trio, among the acts scheduled to appear at Annapolis New Year's Eve First Night, has four members."We did it to ourselves," explains Zachary Smith, the cornetist who also plays washboard and accordion.Smith, tubist Andy Kochenour and banjoist Bert Carlson had been working as a trio for 1 1/2 years when they went into the studio to make their first compact disc with Annapolis native Byron McWilliams on drums.

Leah Goldstein, 10, prefers the tuba to the violin."The violin is too perfect. People who play it act too perfect," said Goldstein, who lives in Pikesville and attends Wellwood International School. "Most tuba people have a sense of humor, and they fool around."And Leah, along with more than 200 other musicians, showed nearly 2,500 listeners just what the tuba and tuba players can do yesterday at Baltimore's 14th annual Tuba Christmas, held at the Inner Harbor. It featured mostly local tuba players ages 2 1/2 to 73 playing Christmas songs and carols from "Adeste Fideles" to "Jingle Bells."

We went in search of the future in the corridors of high schools and found six stories of resolve and commitment, of pride and emerging self-esteem, of triumph over adversity. Slightly battered by unruly economic times and the cyclonic whirl of turbulent society, these six men and women have nonetheless remained buoyant and steadfast. In search of keepsakes from the Class of 1992, we found six seemingly unconnected lives that seen as one create a patchwork quilt of persistence.Richard WhiteAge: 18Residence: BaltimoreGraduating from: Baltimore School for the ArtsFuture: major in music at New England Conservatory of Music, Manhattan School of Music or Peabody ConservatoryTo some people's eyes, the tuba is big, bulky and ugly.

Corey Hamilton's tuba is 4 inches wider than he is. The instrument measures in at 33-by-18 inches, and 10-year-old Hamilton is about 56 inches tall and 14 inches hip-to-hip. The tuba looks as if it's older than its musician, and the sound it makes is easily twice as loud as Corey's speaking voice. But none of that stopped Corey, a rising fifth-grader at Worthington Elementary School, from learning to play it this summer - so he could fill a much-needed chair in the school band. "When I started, these notes looked so hard, and I didn't know what buttons to press," the Ellicott City resident said.

Andrew Spang knows his band students at Folly Quarter Middle School do not always listen to him. That's why he was looking forward to last week's countywide orchestra adjudication, where student orchestras perform for independent judges. "Sometimes they'll say things in just the right way," said Spang, director of bands at Folly Quarter and the Maryland Music Educators Association Outstanding Music Teacher for 2007-2008. He said that judges make comments on a performance and "they'll word it differently, so that it strikes home" with students.

It's time to get down to brass tacks. Tuba, baritone, euphonium and sousaphone players can gather Saturday to perform international Christmas carols at Frederick Towne Mall, 1301 W. Patrick St., Frederick. Registration is 12:45 p.m.-1:30 p.m., rehearsal is 1:30 p.m.-2:30 p.m., and the concert is at 3. Registration is $5. Call Patty Ensminger at 301-432-7121 or go to tubachristmas.com.

South County concert -- The South County Concert Association will present the Bay Street Brassworks at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at Southern High School, 4400 Solomons Island Road in Harwood. This ensemble features the trombone, French horn, tuba and a pair of trumpets. The concert is open to all members of the South County Concert Association and the Anne Arundel Community Concert Association. General admission is $20 for nonmembers. 410-956-4881, 301-261-5802 or www.southcountyconcertassocia tion.

OOM-PAH-PAH Question: What do you get when you blend the sounds of more than 250 tubas and euphoniums in one holiday performance? Answer: A Merry Tuba Christmas. And that's just what you'll hear at the Harborplace Amphitheatre on Saturday. The 23rd annual event features seasonal music and holiday carols from hundreds of tuba and euphonium players. Spectators can enjoy the holiday tunes while sampling hot refreshments from M&S Grill. ....................... Merry Tuba Christmas takes place from 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturday at the Harborplace Amphitheatre, Inner Harbor.

Go See The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe -- This movie - which conveys director Andrew Adamson and screenwriters Ann Peacock, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely's love for the original C.S. Lewis novel and for moviemaking - has everything a first-rate fantasy should have, including sweep, color and clarity. Sun score: A. Syriana -- Writer-director Stephen Gaghan jams a diverse group of players inside a jagged-edged, radical-chic plot. George Clooney is an out-of-favor CIA agent, Matt Damon an international-finance whiz grieving for his son, and Jeffrey Wright a Washington lawyer ordered by his boss (Christopher Plummer)

They peered from their hotel rooms, from the deck of the Constellation and from balconies up and down the Harborplace complex, people drawn to the sight - and sound - of more than 200 tubas and other brass instruments in one place. "It's fun and a little funny," said Mike Sohng, 25, who was warming up his baritone tuba just minutes before the start of the annual Merry Tuba Christmas concert yesterday outside the Light Street Pavilion. He said the curious onlookers "get something kind of strange.

They peered from their hotel rooms, from the deck of the Constellation and from balconies up and down the Harborplace complex, people drawn to the sight -- and sound -- of more than 200 tubas and other brass instruments in one place. "It's fun and a little funny," said Mike Sohng, 25, who was warming up his baritone tuba just minutes before the start of the annual Merry Tuba Christmas concert yesterday outside the Light Street Pavilion. He said the curious onlookers "get something kind of strange.

THE BALTIMORE Symphony Orchestra is the best-known and arguably the most important fine arts organization in Maryland. That is why two separate articles in the Sept. 25 edition of The Sun were so revealing. That one reported on financial issues and the other examined artistic endeavors clearly illustrates the two poles of reality in which the BSO, and those who cover it, coexist. The front-page story described how the BSO, with debts mounting and subscriptions and endowments declining, is proposing to sell Meyerhoff Symphony Hall to a new, nonprofit subsidiary and then lease it back.

Vardry Le'Mont "Bob" Spencer, an honor college graduate who chose to do the custodial work that he felt gave him a freedom of mind that other jobs would not, died Monday at Union Memorial Hospital after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage in his Charles Village apartment. He was 57. For 15 years, Mr. Spencer was a janitor at the 100 West University Parkway apartment building in North Baltimore's Tuscany-Canterbury neighborhood. He moved through his daily chores wearing, when possible, headphones that played jazz and classical music.