This is a fairly shameless post to promote my son Chris’ band “YouTuba” who have just released their first commercial CD.

Chris has been a brass player since he was about 8 years old, when he joined Berkshire Maestros and took up the tenor horn. A tenor horn is half a tuba (ie if you unraveled it, the pipework would be half that of a tuba) and as such, plays an octave higher than a tuba. It is also small enough for an 8 year old with a mouthpiece and required playing pressure more akin to that of an 8 year old.

As Chris was practicing his grade 1 scales, he could hear our next door neighbour playing the Star Wars theme on his tuba. At that point Chris decided that he wanted to be a tuba player!

A few years (and a few grades) later finds him at Trinity College of Music in London studying a B.Mus. (Hons) with a primary study in Tuba (secondary study was voice – he was always a good singer and had voice tuition at the Royal Opera House during his first year)

In 2006, he formed YouTuba as a vehicle to enter the prestigious Philip Jones Brass Ensemble competition and in 2008 were awarded first prize. The first low brass group to do so. Their repertoire was a mixture of classical and chamber music, together with modern jazz and their own compositions and arrangements. They used this rather cool logo (seen it somewhere before?)

Here they are receiving their prize (pictured with Rex Richardson)

With their new-found fame, YouTuba took some timely legal advice and decided to ditch the familiar logo and design their own:

Since then, the guys have played all over the UK, guested with various brass bands, played charity concerts with the Salvation Army and enthused schoolchildren in SE London via South London Music Trust

Here they are playing with Dennis Rollins at the Yorkshire Arts Council / Cultural Olympiad Brazzmatazz presentation:

YouTuba have invested a significant amount of their own time and money in the new venture.

Read more about them here

Listen to excerpts on their Facebook page(s)

Buy CD here

Individual tracks are available to purchase via Facebook/iTunes

Update 29-Jan-10: YouTuba perform Carnival CD in Oxford Street!

Further to the post on here about SE London’s favourite low brass ensemble (Tuba Quartet!), the guys played a lunchtime concert at Oxford Street’s Regent Hall last Friday, which resulted in the following review in The Bandsman magazine. Not a mag that I read frequently I must admit – but nice to be recognised in the press.

There’s a copy of the review on YouTuba’s website here.

Here they are playing “William Tell Overture” in Oxford Street before the gig:

[/Parental duty]