Free Art for All: How We Partner with Local Organizations to Bring Arts to the Library

Nov. 26, 2025 – Every December, the Commons of the Downtown Library is filled with tubas – nearly 100 of them – for the annual Merry TubaChristmas concert. Well, tubas, sousaphones, baritones, and euphoniums – the brass section is well represented.

Add in a crowd of holiday music enthusiasts who often sing along, and this event makes a lot of noise.

That’s kind of the point – to gather friends, neighbors, and strangers alike to make music and build community together.

“We do it because we like music. We just enjoy it. We do it not to make money but just to have fun,” said Cedar Rapids Merry TubaChristmas coordinator Jim Engelbach. “We really like encouraging young people to continue to be musicians. And the main thing we like to do is give back a little something for free to the community.”

That ethos makes their partnership with the library a perfect fit. The TubaChristmas performance, which returns to the Downtown Library on Saturday, Dec. 13, from 3-4 pm, is just one of many arts organizations the library partners with to provide music, dance, theater, and fine art opportunities to the public – all for free.

“This is who we are at our core. There’s a huge equity focus to it,” said Programming Manager Kevin Delecki. “In order to engage with the vast majority of performances, there is usually a cost. We want to democratize that access. Financial barriers don’t need to be a barrier to really high-level music and theater performances.”

The same week of TubaChristmas, people could also take free tango lessons, attend a musical performance by the Collins Aerospace Band, bring their kids to a special music story time with Music Together, a program by Orchestra Iowa, or participate in Expressive Arts with Tanager, which uses arts to promote processing, feeling, and healing for youth and their caregivers.

All of these programs are free to attend and open to all, and all are organized by library partners.

“These partnerships allow us to offer things that library staff don’t have the ability to produce and facilitate on their own,” Delecki said. “It’s just a really beautiful way to bring in the community and build the community.”

Other partnerships include the Iowa Ceramic Center, ArtShare through the University of Iowa, Young at Harp, school group music concerts, Orchestra Iowa’s Pied Piper concerts for preschoolers, Cedar Rapids Opera’s annual children’s opera, regular concerts by Red Cedar Chamber Orchestra, and more. In the fall, the library hosted the Cedar Rapids Storytelling Festival with TellersBridge, along with the Tiny Art project with the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art.

Merry TubaChristmas is put on in towns across the country via the Harvey Phillips Foundation. Engelbach was part of the group who organized the first local concert 24 years ago. They used to perform at Westdale Mall, and he said finding a venue that could hold up to 100 players – plus their tubas – and an enthusiastic audience was a challenge, especially since they don’t sell tickets or make money from the concert.

When the Downtown Library opened in 2013, it was a match made in tuba heaven, and the concert has been held at the library ever since.

"It has been fantastic – we've got some great library elves that help us,” Engelbach said. "The library has given us everything and asked for nothing in return.”

Partnering with the library also allows arts organizations to reach new audiences.

“Many people might not choose to try the opera when they have to buy a ticket and go to a new place. But they might come to a free performance at the library,” Delecki said. “We offer access to the arts in a place where there’s already an understanding that everyone is welcome and there’s no expectation of payment.”

This fall, Ballet Des Moines unveiled a program to bring in audience members from across the state: anyone who has a library card to any Iowa library can show their card to get a free ticket to an upcoming performance.

It’s a partnership that makes sense, Delecki said.

“So much of what the library does is offer people access to information. Music and art and theater are all different forms of information, different forms of how things are communicated,” he said. “It’s not wrong for people to just want to go somewhere and be entertained. But they also can experience something new that offers new learning, new experiences, new insights.”