Re: Oscar Lagasse


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Posted by Eric Hult on June 20, 2001 at 22:18:33:

In Reply to: Oscar Lagasse posted by Karl K on June 20, 2001 at 12:49:19:

As far as I know, Mr. Lagasse is alive and well and living in Royal Oak Michigan. He is 97 or 98 years old! I studied with him from 1965 to 1972 and can share a little about him. He was my first mentor and the reason I pursued the tuba as a career even though it didn't work out. He played tuba in the Detroit Symphony for many years, from the 1940's, retiring in 1971. In addition to tuba, he was also a fine double bass player, studied the cello at Fountainbleau (spelling?) in France and was a fine furniture builder. In the 1950's when the Symphony folded he built furniture and sold it to J.L. Hudson's, the big department store in Detroit. He could look at a picture of a piece of antique furniture in a magazine and build the very same piece. I remember the time he built a doctor's chest with 100 drawers, all tongue and groove, very elegant, from a photo.
He played a York factory CC tuba for most of the time I knew him. The last few years in the orchestra he played an Alexander 5 valve CC. He also had a legitimate French single C tuba, a Mahillion which he used only on the bear solo from Petrushka. I owned this horn for a few years and sold it to Walter Sear. When he retired he bought the BBflat York that Mr. Denny owns now. His lessons were 40 minutes but never lasted less than an hour. He never charged me more than five dollars for a lesson. Often times if the lesson was at his lovely big home they would last all afternoon. We would start with the actual tuba lesson, proceed to the basement for a lesson in furniture building, stop for a beer and triskets, and finish the afternoon or evening listening to Horowitz, or Heifitz, or Rubinstein. His first wife June was a harpist and they had a beautiful Steinway baby grand in the living room. She was a highly spiritual person and the lesson often included instruction in this area also.
Mr. Lagasse is such a special person. He played such an important part in my early years. He always showed great interest in all of his students, had great patience, eveness of temper and personality, wonderful storyteller, and a pretty good beer drinker along with his buddies in the "Bass Trust". First class all the way, or, the way he always described people he admired, "Very high type person". With a name like Oscar Lagasse, he just had to be a tuba player. (or a chef!) Thanks, Best Regards, Eric Hult


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