J.S. Bach: Suite in Miniature in D minor BWV 1008 - Chris Olka - solo contrabass tuba

www.ietfestival.com
This is a performance from the IET (International Euphonium and Tuba Festival) at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia from June 20, 2019. Chris is playing this piece on the new Eastman EBC836S CC 6/4 York-style contrabass tuba, and sure does a beautiful job playing a difficult arrangement, that was obviously not written for contrabass tuba.
This is a truly beautiful performance. I wish I had been able to get a microphone closer-up, since he plays so deeply and the reverb in the hall swallows-up some of the precise playing that he does, but overall I think it turned out nice.
Chris Olka is currently the Principal Tubist of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and is an Eastman artist. This tuba was not even his personal horn. It was driven out to the festival so that he would not have to travel with his own tuba.
I hope you enjoy every note! There are a bunch of them.
#tuba #iplayeastman

[@CloroxBleach-lo1nj]

Did you ever hear the tragedy of the Yamayork? I thought not. It's not a story Eastman would tell you. It's a Yamaha legend. The Yamayork was a 6/4 BAT, so powerful and so thicc sounding it could use its meaty tone to influence the audition panel to create tuba jobs... It had such unrivaled craftsmanship, it could even keep college freshmen employed. The craftsmanship of Yamaha is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural. It became so powerful… the only thing it was afraid of was getting copied, which eventually, of course, it was. Unfortunately, one was sold on tubenet, then it was copied and sold at 1/4th of the price. Ironic. It could save other tubas from being copied by Chinese companies and sold at a fraction of the cost, but not itself.

[@gregpreston3676]

This is the best comment on KZbin

[@geofferytian1757]

you clearly have no clue that yamayork was a copy of the original chicago york. Who can afford the price of a brand new yamayork? A college freshman?

[@swanben11]

@@geofferytian1757 How is that remotely obvious? Of course he knows that. He’s just referencing Star Wars, so don’t be a joyless twit. It makes people dislike you, and it’s, well, joyless.

[@Billtuba]

It’s nice to hear a tuba solo that is in the low register. Most of the rep is written to be played much higher on the instrument than other brass solos for other instruments. When you think of a tuba, you think of a big full rich low sound. Imagine if all of the piccolo trumpet solo rep was written in the lowest possible range, it would sound ridiculous. Why not exploit what the instrument can do and sound great. When I was doing my masters, I did a piece that was pretty challenging and rather high. I got bored and played it on euph and it was like a grade 3 euphonium piece. When most have played that particular piece, it just sounded like an out of tune horn or euph. Glad to see someone rocking the low range of a big horn. Congrats to Chris Olka, he is a BEAST. BRAVO.

[@Murmur1796]

Agree that it's nice to hear low register tuba, but he's playing the piece an octave below what it's written for: cello. It's a testament to Bach that the cello suites can be translated to modern tuba and still sound great. But when you talk about using an instrument's strengths.... yeah the tuba didn't exist for Bach.

[@kobegreene6630]

Totally agree, Contrabass tuba does not get enough love. Gotta love that Eastman york sound especially ;^)

[@mpmcd81]

Thanks for sharing, Dylan. For the rest of us mere mortals, Mr. Olka’s sloppiest days are still more precise than our best days, and that absolutely came through in the recording.

[@charleskelley6257]

Wow! Another impressive contrabass tuba recording from Chris Olka. Incredible sound, control and musicianship. Bookmarked for constant playback to burn the sound into my brain...

[@absolutelynotacommie]

What a fantastic piece!

[@geoffbakerhytch5623]

Gorgeous playing! Chris is a great inspiration to contrabass tuba players - such virtuosity and graceful music from such an enormous tuba; also, a great interpretation of Bach's music on a modern instrument! I'm also very grateful to Chris for his tuba reviews (found on his own channel: Chris Olka). Bravissimo, Chris!

[@dwaynegraham3756]

Awesome!! Great performance as well as a great videoing of the performance… Clear and crisp sound.

[@Betotuba]

Wonderful!! Fantastic contrabass tuba sound, beautiful interpretation! Congratulations!!!

[@jean-francoispelletier8985]

Wonderful interpretation, fantastic 6/4 sound, limits are pushed so far... very inspiring for tuba players work... Bravo to Chris and thanks for this moment

[@nevilleshade5444]

Thanks for another great video Chris. Your mastery of the instrument is amazing. Such great control and mobility enables you to defy the physics of your instrument. Incredible phrasing. A beautiful performance,

[@pugandblizzard]

Beautiful. As much as I enjoy the solo repertoire for the F and E flat tube, it's always a real pleasure to hear a BB flat or CC used so gracefully as a solo instrument. Bravo.

[@Coleton0120]

This is so awesome.

[@bontrom8]

I am just getting back into listening to low stuff, and your example reminds me of why I enjoyed going to recitals in college. I play bass trombone, so the technical challenges are completely different, and hearing somwthing this different is very inspiring to break out of my single interpretation!

[@user-user00]

Bravo

[@davidaubuchon7309]

Outstanding! Thank you for posting this.

[@needhamtuba]

Alright Chris!

[@hagan9769]

Best 14 and a half minutes of my life.

[@tubadylan]

Awesome!

[@disamis6873]

His flexibility and ease of sound is absolutely insane! Bravo!! 👏👏👏 Edit: What is the secret to his incredible flexibility?

[@senrrui]

Outstanding perfornance, as usual. I learn how deep is your breath taking. Amazing the pedal notes. However, sound is poorly recorded, probably due to microphone location. Recording a tuba is always a challenge.

[@julianc.torres9857]

I wonder if this will be the same horn Eastman will bring at the TBA convention later this July

[@atshinkansen7439]

This video has inspired me to learn this piece myself. Following along with the sheet music (I’m reading straight off the cello music), I notice Mr. Olka plays each note in the chords in ascending order. Is this common practice for solo wind musicians when encountering chords in sheet music?

[@stickom]

A veterinarian and an amateur horn player trying to put Sarabande of this suite for my own challenge, so the answer for cord is Yes. Here the horn player is doing "multyphonics" cords not the arpeggios, take a look: BACH Johann Sebastian, Suita pro lesní roh BWV 1008

[@its_shxblvrbs1786]

In my opinion, this room is a little too boomy for a contrabass solo. It would be great for a brass ensemble or something but it still doesn’t take away from the fact that this was a monstrous performance.

[@topsecret1837]

Wait a second: did tubas always have a trombone like sliding piece?

[@tubadylan]

Yes, tubas all have tuning slides. It's the player's choice as to whether they use them or not...

[@stevenk9466]

I am impressed that, even though this is not his personal tuba, and each tuba has its own quirks with respect to tuning individual notes, he seems to have the slide positions nailed for each note. Well done!

[@jerrybyers2172]

Is that a YCB326-S?

[@jerrybyers2172]

@@thomaselley1211 OK, thanks.

[@1qxd]

Why is he moving the tuning slide for almost every note? hes basically playing a tuba and a trombone at the same time.

[@tubadylan]

The closer to the center of each pitch one can get, the more solid the core of the sound is for that pitch. It's kind of like fine tuning on a trombone, yes, but it's pretty much unconscious for the player, especially a great one like Chris.

[@cmw12]

Gorgeous. Low notes accented a bit too much by the nature of the instrument, but beautiful nonetheless.

[@cmw12]

Fantastic player, but what's with that conniption he has when breathing? Do the shoulders need to move at all? Is any purpose served by jerking the head sharply to the right? I don't want to question something that clearly works for Mr. Olka, but it seems unnecessary and is slightly disturbing to watch. Could lead to back/neck problems.

[@roadracer1593]

A tuba produces a sound similar to a fart.

[@GLC-1979]

It's sad Chris caved into the woke minority mob and made that video about "inclusion". Perhaps Karma is a B for those who threatened him to make it..

[@tubadylan]

I didn't see that video, sorry.

[@GLC-1979]

@@tubadylan Dylan it's on his channel.

[@tubadylan]

@@GLC-1979 I'll give it a look...

[@tubadylan]

@@GLC-1979 I thought it was a good conversation. He didn't get into what was said that offended someone, or a group of people, which I thought was in good taste. I'm glad I listened.