Four metal sousaphones were stolen from Mira Costa High School’s band room just after midnight on Tuesday, according to Joel Carlson, the band program director.
Mira Costa is the latest high school to have been hit by the wave of tuba thefts trickling through Los Angeles high schools.
“It’s kind of heartbreaking,” said Gretchen Renshaw, president of the Band Boosters.
Other high schools to have been burglarized in recent months include South Gate, Centennial, Huntington Park and Fremont, according to the Los Angeles Times. Renshaw guessed the focused theft from Costa relates to Southern California’s banda music craze – tuba players can earn more than $100 an hour, as reported in the Times article.
“Individuals don’t usually own sousaphones. Institutions own sousaphones, because you play them to march.” Renshaw said. “So they stole them from schools.”
Carlson didn’t know on Tuesday whether, or when, the instruments would be replaced. “Our budget year to year is pretty threadbare. We don’t buy a lot of new instruments because our annual costs are more directed toward the instruction of students,” Carlson said. “Buying instruments is a luxury.”
While the stolen sousaphones were about a decade old and had their share of dents, replacing them will be costly, Renshaw said. Sousaphones start at about $5,000 each, and can reach up to $8,000, Carlson said.
“I’m shocked it happened to us,” he said.
Also stolen were a collection of mouthpieces and what connects the mouthpiece to the instrument, Carlson said. “My family’s out $350 worth of mouthpieces,” Renshaw said. Her son, Axel Zwissler, plays the bassoon and also marches with the sousaphone.
The sousaphones are used in the marching band during marching season, which just wrapped up in December. The band had performed using the sousaphones last month at Downtown Disney – in fact, until Dec. 22, the 4-foot-tall, 40-pound tubas were stored in Renshaw’s home.
Surveillance footage shows two people with a crowbar breaking in, Carlson said. “Not that they were recognizable,” he said, as he set up music stands in the band room before the booster club meeting. “They were wearing hoods and it was dark.”
Carlson felt Costa being targeted seemed random. “I wonder if they’re doing more research now,” he said.
“It could be me posting those little clips on YouTube,” Renshaw added.
The suspects broke the lock in the drama room and entered the band room. “They did a number on my door handle,” Carlson said, noting that it had already been replaced.
Parents at the booster club meeting were shaken by the burglary.
“That people were just in here looking through this with that kind of a motive kind of shakes your sense of safety,” said Aura Webster.
