• Tuba Christmas, featuring dozens of tuba players playing Christmas tunes, is on Saturday at Market Square, 560 Johnson St. in Victoria, 1 p.m. to about 3 p.m. It is a fundraiser for the Times 91原创 Christmas Fund.
Victoria’s Tuba Christmas, now in its 46th year, attracts all kinds of tuba players, from professionals to kids who just took up the instrument. “I’m professional and I’ve sat beside a kid who just started playing in September,” said Scott MacInnes, who is in his second year of conducting the holiday concert.
“You have to have a festive attitude and a tuba of some sort. That’s pretty much it.” Anyone who has both can register on Saturday to play in the event, which raises money for the Times 91原创 Christmas Fund.
Started in 1956, the fund is one of the province’s oldest Christmas-related charity efforts. The Times 91原创 has raised and distributed millions of dollars to community agencies on the Island through the fund.
Some of the Tuba Christmas participants decorate their instruments and get dressed up.
While it started small in Victoria, it has grown over the years, attracting up to 150 tuba and euphonium players one year, MacInnes said.
One woman travels from northern California to play in Victoria’s Tuba Christmas, said MacInnes, who attributes the city’s popularity on the Tuba Christmas circuit — which spans North America and Australia — to its founder, Gene Dowling.
The Victoria concert is modelled after an annual holiday event started in the United States, with the first show taking place in New York City’s Rockefeller Plaza in 1974.
“It kind of exploded after that,” MacInnes said.
Five years after that first event, Victoria hosted its first Tuba Christmas, founded by Dowling, a tuba player who played with the Victoria Symphony and taught at the University of Victoria for more than 30 years.
A lot of events that cater to just one instrument tend to inspire competition between players, but Dowling, who died in 2015, didn’t let that happen to Victoria’s Tuba Christmas, MacInnes said. “The way that he ran it, it felt more like a community rather than a competition.”
HOW TO DONATE TO THE CHRISTMAS FUND
• Go online to . That page is linked to CanadaHelps, which is open 24 hours a day and provides an immediate tax receipt.
• Use your credit card by phoning 250-995-4438 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday through Friday.
• Cheques should be made out to the Times 91原创 Christmas Fund. Drop them at the Times 91原创 office in Vic West, 201-655 Tyee Road, Victoria.
• Or, for the duration of the postal strike, contact Maximum Express for free pickup and delivery of your cheque. Call dispatch at 250-721-3278 or email [email protected].
