DaXun Tames the Double Bass – Washington Post Article

The Washington Post had an article last year on double bass soloist and Northwestern University instructor DaXun Zhang. I just recently discovered it. Here is an excerpt:

The double bass is one of the few remaining instruments that have never produced a bankable star in classical music. There has been no Itzhak Perlman, no Yo-Yo Ma, no James Galway of the double bass; indeed, DaXun Zhang, who played a smashing recital at the Terrace Theater on Tuesday night, is the first bassist to be so featured in the Washington Performing Arts Society’s Kreeger String Series at the Kennedy Center.

To be sure, there have been some distinguished performers on this largest of orchestral instruments — Edgar Meyer, Gary Karr and, early in his career, the conductor Serge Koussevitzky (not to mention great, plucking jazzies such as Charles Mingus and Milt Hinton). But the bass is profoundly difficult to master, and even once that is accomplished, the instrument retains a certain awkwardness that nobody, in my experience, has ever quite managed to transcend.

You can read the complete article here.