About TubaChristmas

​TubaChristmas was conceived by world-renowned tubist Harvey Phillips in 1974 as a tribute to the late tuba artist and teacher William J. Bell, born on Christmas Day, 1902. Through this legendary performer and educator, we reflect on our heritage and honor all great artists and teachers whose legacy has given us high performance standards, well-structured pedagogy, professional integrity, personal values, and a camaraderie envied by all other instrumentalists.

The first TubaChristmas was conducted by the late Paul Lavalle in New York City's Rockefeller Plaza Ice Rink on Sunday, December 22, 1974. Traditional Christmas music performed at the first TubaChristmas—and every TubaChristmas thereafter—was arranged by American composer Alec Wilder, who ironically died on Christmas Eve, 1980. The collection was later expanded with arrangements created by Norlan Bewley.

TubaChristmas Los Angeles is almost as old as TubaChristmas itself! The local series was started by the great recording artist Jim Self in 1975 and has run every year since (except for a 2-year hiatus during the CoVID-19 pandemic). From 2011 to 2025 is was organized and conducted by Scott Wilkinson, who moved to the Bay Area and now organizes TubaChristmas Monterey Bay!

About Paul Asimow

​​Paul Asimow is an amateur musician and a professional geologist. His day job is Professor of Geology and Geochemistry at Caltech, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate students about the Earth and planets and conducts a mix of laboratory, computational, and field-based research. You can find links to his 236 (at last count) published papers on Google Scholar.

Paul was born and raised in Southern California and may have originally been a flute player, but he took up both tuba and conducting while a member of the Harvard University Band. A year as student conductor of that group proved valuable experience in wrangling large numbers of unruly musicians, not so different from conducting TubaChristmas. He first attended TubaChristmas in Boston before coming back to California for graduate school at Caltech. At this point, Paul’s scarf carrying buttons from every TubaChristmas he’s played in is almost too heavy and unwieldy to wear. At Caltech he began his now 35-year association with the Caltech (formerly Caltech-Occidental) Wind Orchestra (formerly Concert Band). Former Caltech bands director Bill Bing offered Paul the privilege of helping to conduct that group, a tradition that continues to this day. Paul also plays tuba in the Dad’s Band Plus One.

Paul is honored and excited to inherit the leadership of TubaChristmasLA from Scott Wilkinson.