The University of Central Arkansas Department of Music will host three OCTUBA-themed concerts to celebrate the tuba and euphonium — Octubafest, Tubaween and Toad Suck Buck’s Octubafest — in October.

All three concerts are free and open to the public.

The UCA Octubafest will be in UCA’s Snow Fine Arts Center Recital Hall at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 23. 

Octubafest will feature members of the Tuba and Euphonium Studio who will perform solos. The students will perform pieces from Grant, Capuzzi, Strauss, Curnow, Ostrander and more. Student composers Sam Revis and Jacob Straub will each perform their own original compositions for tuba as well.

Toad Suck Buck’s Fifth Annual Octubafest is Saturday, Oct. 27. The free event will take place from 3-5 p.m. at 11 Roaring River Loop in Houston (Perry County). Dr. Gail Robertson, associate professor of tuba and euphonium/jazz, will conduct this year’s new polka that she composed, “The Seed Tick Polka.”

Tubaween will take place in the Snow Fine Arts Recital Hall at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 30.

Tubaween will also feature the Tuba and Euphonium Ensemble as well as upperclassmen and graduate students of the Tuba and Euphonium Studio. Ensemble works performed will be Strauss’s “Elsas Procession to the Cathedral,” conducted by graduate student Justin Gavito, and the “Colonel Bogey March” and “A Hymnsong of Philip Bliss” conducted by graduate student Sam Tuttle.

Robertson said the first Octubafest took place in 1974 at Indiana University when the late Harvey Phillips, a legendary teacher of the tuba, started the event in remembrance of his teacher, William Bell.

“The idea spread, as did Phillips’ Tubachristmas, Tubasantas and Tubajazz, all designed to celebrate his beloved big brass instruments,” Robertson said, quoting from Indiana University’s music page.

For more information, contact Robertson at [email protected] or 501.450.5760.