The thirty-seventh annual MERRY TUBACHRISTMAS concert will take place Sunday at Rockefeller Center
Ice Skating Rink at Rockefeller Center
50th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Sunday, December 12, 11:30 am registration
Admission: free
Participation: $5
www.tubachristmas.com
www.rockefellercenter.com/events
In 1835, the brass instrument known as the tuba was patented by Wilhelm Wieprecht and Johann Gottfried Moritz. Musical prodigy William J. Bell, who was born on Christmas Day, 1902, began playing the tuba when he was ten years old, later joined the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the NBC Symphony Orchestra (under Arturo Toscanini) as principal tuba, and then taught music at Indiana University beginning in 1961, passing away shortly after his retirement in 1971. In 1974, as a tribute to his mentor, former student Harvey G. Phillips established the annual MERRY TUBACHRISTMAS concert, which celebrates Bell and his dedication to the tuba and the euphonium by playing Christmas carols arranged by Alec Wilder, who passed away in 1980 on Christmas Eve. The Harvey Phillips Foundation, a nonprofit group affiliated with Indiana University, now sponsors TUBACHRISTMAS all around the world, “honoring all great artists/teachers whose legacy has given us high performance standards, well structured pedagogy, professional integrity, personal values, and a camaraderie envied by all other instrumentalists.” And you thought it was just a whole bunch of people playing “Jingle Bells” on tubas at the Rockefeller Center ice rink. Well, on Sunday, December 12, a whole bunch of people will play “Jingle Bells” and other Christmas classics on tubas at the Rockefeller Center ice rink at 3:30, conducted by Chris Wilhjelm and hosted by Phillips himself. If you’d like to participate, just show up to register at 11:30 in “warm, bright, festive colors” with your tuba and a music stand or lyre and be ready to rehearse at 12:30.
Masaki Kobayashi paints four marvelous ghost stories in this eerie collection that won a Special Jury Prize at Cannes. In “The Black Hair,” a samurai (Rentaro Mikuni) regrets his choice of leaving his true love for advancement. Yuki (Keiko Kishi) is a harbinger of doom in “The Woman of the Snow.” Hoichi (Katsuo Nakamura) must have his entire body covered in prayer in “Hoichi, the Earless.” And Kannai (Kanemon Nakamura) finds a creepy face staring back at him in “In a Cup of Tea.” Winner of the Special Jury Prize at Cannes, KWAIDAN is one of the greatest ghost story films ever made, four creepy, atmospheric existential tales that will get under your skin and into your brain. The score was composed by Tōru Takemitsu, who said of the film, “I wanted to create an atmosphere of terror.” He succeeded.
Japanese novelist Kôbô Abe and director Hiroshi Teshigahara collaborated on five films together, including the marvelously existential WOMAN OF THE DUNES in 1964 and THE FACE OF ANOTHER two years later. In THE FACE OF ANOTHER, Tatsuya Nakadai (THE HUMAN CONDITION, KILL!) stars as Okuyama, a man whose face has virtually disintegrated in a laboratory accident. He spends the first part of the film with his head wrapped in bandages, a la the Invisible Man, as he talks about identity, self-worth, and monsters with his wife (Machiko Kyo), who seems to be growing more and more disinterested in him. Then Okuyama visits a psychiatrist (Mikijirô Hira) who is able to create a new face for him, one that would allow him to go out in public and just become part of the madding crowd again. But his doctor begins to wonder, as does Okuyama, whether the mask has actually taken control of his life, making him as helpless as he was before. Abe’s remarkable novel is one long letter from Okuyama to his wife, filled with utterly brilliant, spectacularly detailed examinations of what defines a person and his or her value in society. Abe wrote the film’s screenplay, which tinkers with the time line and creates more situations in which Okuyama interacts with people; although that makes sense cinematically, much of Okuyama’s interior narrative, the building turmoil inside him, gets lost. Teshigahara once again uses black and white, incorporating odd cuts, zooms, and freeze frames, amid some truly groovy sets, particularly the doctor’s trippy office, and Tōru Takemitsu’s score is ominously groovy as well. As a counterpart to Okuyama, the film also follows a young woman (Miki Irie) with one side of her face severely scarred; she covers it with her hair and is not afraid to be seen in public, while Okuyama must hide behind a mask. But as Abe points out in both the book and the film, everyone hides behind a mask of one kind or another.