Pioneering tuba virtuoso led the way for women
A lot of people had one question for Constance Weldon, she once recalled, when they saw her lugging a 40- pound bass tuba down the street: “Why didn’t you take up the piccolo?”
The truth was that she had already tried her hand at the flute — and the trumpet, the trombone and other instruments — but she fell in love with a tuba that her father brought home from a pawnshop.
“I played it and said ‘ This is for me,’ ” Ms. Weldon told The Miami Herald in 1981. “On no other instrument I played had the sound come so naturally.”
Ms. Weldon, who is believed to be the first female tubist to earn a position in a major American symphony orchestra, died Aug. 7 at an assisted living facility in Southport, N. C. She was 88.
Her death was confirmed by her longtime friend and caretaker, Linda Broadwell.
Constance Janet Weldon was born on Jan. 25, 1932, in Winter Haven, Fla., to George and Edythe ( Roebke) Weldon. The family soon moved to Miami, where her father took a job as a groundskeeper at Vizcaya, an estate built by agricultural machinery magnate James Deering, which later became the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens. Her mother worked as a teacher.
Constance began playing various instruments in elementary school, and after graduating from Miami Jackson High School, she decided to study tuba performance at the University of Miami. She auditioned for the Tanglewood Music Festival and spent her first summer there as a student in 1951.
At the end of that summer, she was offered a position in the Rio de Janeiro Symphony, but she turned it down to finish her degree. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in music in 1953, she continued studying at the university and received a master’s in education.
In 1954, she returned to Tanglewood. A year later, she began playing with Arthur Fiedler’s Boston Pops orchestra, apparently making her the first female tuba player in a major American orchestra. After two seasons touring with the Pops, she performed with the North Carolina Symphony from 1956 to 1957.
Following her time in North Carolina, Ms. Weldon moved to Amsterdam on a Fulbright fellowship, studying and playing with Adrian Boorsma, the principal tubist with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. For a time, she was the orchestra’s acting principal, and she also performed with the Netherlands Ballet Orchestra.
When she returned to the U. S., she joined the Kansas City Philharmonic.
“‘ We’ve got a lot of men auditioning for this,’ ” her friend and former student Jack Weinstein said she was told at that audition. “‘ You can’t just be better; you’re going to have to be much better.’ ”
“‘ Fine with me,’ ” Ms. Weldon said she responded. “‘ Unless I am, I don’t want the job.’ ”
Mr. Weinstein noted that it took 50 years for another woman to be appointed to play tuba in a major U. S. orchestra: Carol Jantsch, who has been at the Philadelphia Orchestra since 2006.
After two seasons in Kansas City, Ms. Weldon returned to Miami to teach tuba at her alma mater while moonlighting with the Miami Philharmonic. In 1960, she formed a tuba ensemble, at the time one of the few groups of its kind at any university.
In 1972, she became the assistant dean for undergraduate studies at the University of Miami’s School of Music, now the Frost School of Music. She held that position until her retirement in 1991.