Mexican music craze prompts tuba thefts in California schools

Feb 11, 2012, 0:41 GMT

Los Angeles - A resurgence in the popularity of the Mexican style of music called banda has sparked a surge in thefts of tubas from school bands in southern California.

The targeted high schools are all in areas with a large Mexican immigrant population where banda - a kind of music dominated by brass and woodwind instruments and anchored by the tuba - has been gaining in popularity in recent years, according to the New York Times and Los Angeles Times on Friday.

The imposing instruments can help banda groups earn up to 3,000 dollars per night for performing t Mexican weddings or other large parties. The instruments themselves can be worth as much as 5,000 dollars.

Though it's unclear exactly how many schools have been hit by the tuba thieves, the report said that scores of instruments had been stolen in the past year - primarily tubas or sousaphones, a tuba specially designed for marching bands.

'I got used to playing different tubas,' Huntington Park High School student Ramon Olivares was quoted as saying. 'I was playing one; they stole it. I switched to our second tuba. They stole it. Now I've got this one. I played it for the first time yesterday.'

Fremont High School has had 12 sousaphones stolen, while SouthGate High lost five tubas worth 30,000 dollars last semester alone. Compton's Centennial High lost eight tubas in October while Bell High School lost two sousaphones last weekend, each worth 6,000 dollars.

In that burglary, the thieves ripped the bolts of all the band's storage lockers but didn't touch the computers or trumpets.

'It was strictly a tuba raid,' Rolph Janssen, an assistant principal told the New York Times.

Banda is very popular in this area of Southern California, and people will pay top dollar for a banda with a sousaphone player, said Bell music teacher Ligia Chaves-Rasas. 'Now, I have kids coming up to me saying they want to learn the tuba so they can be in a banda.'