During the past few weeks, we’ve welcomed the University’s Tuba and Euphonium studio for visits to our off-site storage location so the students can experience the history of the low-brass instrument family. Not only are these visits a chance for students to try a variety of older instruments and learning about their history, but they’re also an excellent opportunity for us to perform check-ups on each instrument to keep them in playing condition.

Some of the instrument manufacturers we had represented were Henry Distin, Frank Holton, John F. Stratton, and Henry Lehnert. We also brought out some unique instruments, like a Martin Double-Bell Euphonium (ca. 1928-1929) and a Wagner tuba by Max Enders (ca. 1903-18). The students particularly enjoyed the chance to try playing our over-the-shoulder Civil War era horns, which you can find in our Carl Busch Papers and Music Instrument Collection.

Thank you to the Tube and Euphonium studio for stopping by—we enjoyed hearing these instruments played! One of the Sousa Archive’s goals is for our instruments to be part of a “living” collection, where they contribute to the musical life on campus as well as our local Urbana-Champaign community. Welcoming the School of Music’s studios and local and regional wind bands to experience and learn about our historical instruments helps us do that!  If you would like to learn more about our music instrument collections, please email schwrtzs@illinois.edu or call 217-333-4577 to schedule a visit with our wonderful collections.