In 2005, Lyric Opera of Chicago bassist (and Contrabass Conversations guest) Greg Sarchet organized a recital celebrating the 100th anniversary of the first known double bass recital in the United States. This 1905 double bass recital was performed by Václav Jiskra, a former student of Sladek in Prague and Simandl in Vienna.

In commemoration of this event, Greg Sarchet organized a recital featuring Chech double bassist Miloslav Gajdos at Northeastern Illinois University. Northeastern (where Greg teaches) has a fabulous recital hall, used for classical music radio broadcasts here in Chicago. I had a chance to perform in this hall in 2006 on Gary Karr’s former ‘Amati’ bass.

This video features Gajdos performing the Concert Fantasy by Jan Geissel, accompanied by Jane Kenas-Heller on piano.

P.S. I made a titling mistake on the video credits for this segment–I labeled the recital as having been performed in 2007 when it was actually 2005. This will be corrected on future videos from this recital.

You can also check this video out on YouTube.

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