The “Amati” and me

This one is from the very first couple of years of the blog–lots of people still land on this post via Google even after all these years:

Tackling the ‘Amati’ – I had the opportunity in 2006 to perform a recital on Gary Karr’s former double bass, previously owned my Boston Symphony Orchestra conductor and bass virtuoso Serge Koussevitzky and attributed to the Amati brothers (although this origin is unlikely). This article relates my experiences playing this instrument and the difficulties and challenges that I discovered while playing his unusual bass.