Tributes to Chris Leuba
Tributes by Jerry Domer, Randy Gardner, Geoffrey Winter, Mike Simpson, Mike Graef, Keith Eitzen, Mike Hettwer, Roger Kaza and Marian Hesse.
Many thanks to Marian Hesse for curating this collection!
From Jerry Domer, Chris Leuba’s best friend:
Jerry Domer provided us with some stream of conscious thoughts about his dear friend, Christopher Leuba.
Chris considered himself an expert on Belgian beer and loved train travel.
He loved going to hot springs. In the early 70's, he visited us in Montana and would insist on being taken to a hot spring pool near the Idaho border in western Montana. Flipping a coin, we would sometimes take him cross-country skiing, which he also enjoyed despite having virtually no skill and terrible balance. When he fell (often), he would ungraciously reject any attempt to help him up. Just try to imagine the vision of Chris in a pair of baggy swim trunks emerging from a hot spring pool, or gingerly trying to co-ordinate skis and poles while bundled up in cold weather gear…smiling yet?
Chris drove only Volkswagens. Old VW's. For a few years, he owned three black VW Beetles, which he named Three, Blind, and Mice. Usually, only one was drivable at any given time, but there were others, a Karmann Ghia, which was a Beetle that looked like a sports car, and a VW bus. Later there were a couple of other models, but they were old when he acquired them. He would never consider buying a new car. There was one exception, an ancient Mercedes sedan. Not a VW, but still German.
Though he would vehemently deny it, he loved cats, all cats, even the ones who disliked him. He would tease those. Whenever he had a working camera with him when he visited us, he would take pictures of the cats, just the cats, unless my wife Joan had one in her lap, then she would be included. (Note from Marian: Jerry’s wife and Joan Watson were two of the important people in Chris’ life. Jerry told me he referred them as his two Joans.)
No one was ever like Julian Christopher Leuba, and no one will ever be like him. Our lives were vastly enriched by him.
In his ascent to Valhalla, he either rode a train or drove a VW. He didn't like horses!
野球のアンパイア
磯部保彦
English version
私は、東京フィルハーモニー交響楽団(Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra)の首席ホルン(principal horn)として活動しながら、休日には野球のアンパイア(Baseball umpire)をしています。
ホルンを高校で始めるまで、野球部に所属して野球をやっていました。
オーケストラに入団した後、仲間を集めて野球チームを作り定期的に試合をしていました。
しかし、家庭を持ったり転職したりと、メンバーそれぞれの環境の変化により、だんだんと試合するにも集まらなくなり、活動がなくなっていきました。
一人でも野球を楽しむ方法がないかと思案していたところ、メジャーリーグ(MLB)のアンパイアを目指している方と知り合いました。
彼とアンパイアについての話しの中で、今度メジャーリーグの審判学校の方が日本で講習会を開催するから参加しませんか？とのお誘いを受けました。
私はさっそくその講習会に参加する事を決心し、Jim Evans Academy of Professional Umpiring（審判学校。MLB公認）の校長をしている、Jim Evansから直接、初心者の私が指導を受ける機会に恵まれました。
さらに、その講習会に参加していた方に勧められて、首都圏野球審判協会(MBUA=Metropolitan area Baseball UmpireAssociation )に加入する事になりました。
それ以来、月に数試合ですが、コンサートやレッスンのない休日に、アマチュア野球のアンパイアをしています。
ゲームでは、キャッチャーの後ろという野球を楽しむには最高のポジションに位置しています。
ピッチャーの投げた抜群のコントロールを判定し、バッターが打った打球を追いかけ、俊足のランナーが駆け抜けて行くベースを見つめてコール！
Strike! He’s Out! That’s a Catch!
何故か、アンパイアした翌日はホルンを吹くと調子が良く感じます。
年間に50試合ほどしかできませんが、身体の丈夫な限り続けていきたいと思っています。
Being a Baseball Umpire
by Yasuhiko Isobe
As a principal hornist for Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, I am also a baseball umpire on the weekends.
Before playing French horn in my high school years, I was a member of a baseball team.
After joining the orchestra, I gathered friends to form a team to play baseball games. However, we stopped playing baseball after some of the team members stopped coming to the games due to life changing events such as job changes and marriages.
While giving some thoughts about how to enjoy baseball alone, I got to know someone who was aspiring to become a baseball umpire for Major League Baseball (MLB). During the conversation about becoming an umpire, he asked me if I would like to participate in a seminar presented by someone from the Major League Baseball umpire school who was coming to Japan.
I decided to go to the seminar, and to my surprise, I was able to get coached by Jim Evans who is the Principal of Jim Evans Academy of Professional Umpiring (approved by MLB). I also became a member of MBUA (Metropolitan area Baseball Umpire Association) after someone from the seminar recommended that I should join the association.
Ever since then, I umpire amateur baseball games a few times a month whenever there are no concerts or lessons.
Judging a pitcher throwing an outstanding curve ball, watching the ball be hit by the batter, a swift-footed runner running over the base and making a call...
Strike! He’s out! That’s a catch!
Being able to stand behind the catcher is the greatest position to enjoy the baseball game.
It may sound strange, but I feel I can perform as a hornist better after umpiring a baseball game the day before.
I umpire roughly 50 games a year. As long as my health allows, I would like to continue umpiring baseball games.
Translation: Mami Abe
A Life of Chemistry and Music
by Roseann Sachs
I have been a musician since I began studying the piano in kindergarten. It was in fourth grade that I began playing the French horn as part of a very strong school music program in Minnesota. I still remember the sense of awe when I first played in a band; and while each instrument had its own part, together we made something much better. It was in middle school that my parents bought me a fine used Mirafone double horn, the horn I still play today. I realize now what a sacrifice that was for them to make that purchase.
As I headed off to Bethel University, in St. Paul, MN, my interests were focused on science and its application to medicine. However, I continued to study piano privately, and I made first chair horn in my college band as a freshman. At the end of my first year, I declared chemistry as my major; but midway through my second year, I also added in a music major, with an emphasis on piano performance. College was very busy for me: a life of long labs, problem sets, lots of practice room time, ensemble rehearsals, recitals and concerts. I have never regretted studying both chemistry and music in college! But what would I do with those two degrees? Along the way I had decided that I wanted to be a college professor, and the intricacies and problem-solving that were a part of organic chemistry were what I most wanted to teach. Therefore I pursued a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry at the University of Minnesota.
Admittedly, during the years of developing my chemistry courses, starting up my undergraduate research lab, earning tenure, and having and raising children, I did not play my horn. When I started to play again here at Messiah College, the horn certainly required some maintenance! Since then, I have played in Messiah College’s horn choir, pit orchestras for our college theatre program and at several high schools, several church gigs, and with the Greater Harrisburg Concert Band. Each time, I’m reminded that there is nothing that compares to performing live music. Chemistry is truly beautiful, trust me on that! However, it’s not the same as how music touches and restores my soul when performing, with either my horn or from the piano, with others.
Roseann K. Sachs is Professor of Chemistry at Messiah College, Mechanicsburg, PA
Kyra Sims speaks to Lydia van Dreel
New York Freelance hornist and actor/writer/director, Kyra Sims, tells us about her life as a horn player and theater artist.
Before we learn about all the non-horn playing interesting things about you, tell us about your life as a horn player. Where did you grow up?
Germantown, TN, right outside of Memphis
When did you start playing horn/where did you study
I started playing horn at age 11, when I joined the 6th grade band at my middle school. I had already been taking piano lessons for several years so I could read music in both clefs, which gave me a leg up on learning horn. I didn’t start private lessons until I was in 9th grade though, so the first year or so of study was my teacher (Jill Wilson) helping me get rid of all my bad habits!
Who are some of your heroes as horn players? As artists? As people?
When I was studying with Jill, she had this beautiful dog, a malamute, whom she’d named Frøydis, after the Norwegian horn player Frøydis Ree Wekre. She told me a little about who Frøydis was, and soon after I found an album of hers at a band clinic. She is still to this day one of my favorite horn players to listen to. Other artistic heroes of mine include the actress Viola Davis, and Lizzo!
You have trained with the Upright Citizens Brigade, you do stand-up comedy, right? Do you also do theater? Other acting?
I did stand up for about a year or so, and I did pretty well I think- I made it into a comedy festival in Chicago, and had a good set there. But after that was over I realized how time intensive it is to become a really good stand up comic, and I didn’t have that time in my life, and I didn’t want to be just an okay comic, so I decided to stop. My main theatre-making these days is with a theatre company I joined in 2015, The New York Neo-Futurists. With them I write, direct, and perform tiny plays- about 2 minutes or less- in a show called The Infinite Wrench. In the show, we try to perform 30 of these plays in 60 minutes, and the audience decides the order. It’s chaotic and experimental, but with moments of truly real, grounded art. I love having a theatre family that keeps me on my toes and lets me be completely myself.
The Horn of the Aerial World
by Gina Gillie
I'd be happy to share a little about my interest in aerial silks.
I went to grad school with an undergraduate colleague who started taking pole dance around 2009. When I saw her pictures, I thought it looked like an awful lot of fun, so I started classes in 2012. After a broken wrist from a bike accident, I started up on lyra (aerial ring), and then finally got to try silks in 2016. That was actually the apparatus that interested me, since it seemed a bit like the horn of the aerial world - temperamental and difficult, but incredibly nuanced and elegant. I enjoy the art of it and the physical challenge. It's the most fun way to develop upper body strength and flexibility that I have encountered.
I'm not always able to train consistently because of my full-time job as a professor and performing musician, and because of a few injuries, but I try to get back to it when time allows. Currently, I take an hour-long class once a week.
Being a musician helps with the artistic side of aerials. Dancers talk about motifs, beats, and rhythm as well, so I am easily able to incorporate my knowledge of music into physical movement. When I create a routine, I am sensitive to the flow of the music and its important moments. This makes if easy to imagine how moves would fit well with the music. I've tried to dream up ways of incorporating the horn into an act; I even thought about getting a super cheap stunt horn, but I haven't done it yet. While my skills are not advanced, I find aerials a very fun way to challenge my body as I get older. Here is a video of some of my work.
Dr. Gina Gillie is an accomplished performer and composer active in the Seattle area, as well as holding the position of Associate Professor of Music at Pacific Lutheran University.
“Interview” of the Month: Jukka Harju
Horn and More has never run a feature quite like this one: Finnish horn virtuoso Jukka Harju, also an accomplished filmmaker, has prepared this delightful quasi interview, quasi rockumentary for our delight and inspiration. This just may become your favorite horn video of all time! -KMT
