Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog

 

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It is my pleasure to bring you this great interview with Pittsburgh Symphony principal bassist Jeff Turner for this week’s episode of Contrabass Conversations. Jeff has excellent advice for musicians, and he reflects on his early years on the instrument in this very engaging interview. You will also be hearing a [...]

Contrabass Conversations guest and bass blog contributor John Grillo is playing principal bass for The Princeton Festival, a summer music festival that opens this Saturday(6/23/07) with a performance of Bizet’s Carmen. John has mentioned that the singers and staging are superb, so this is definitely a performance to check out if you [...]

Contrabass Conversations and TalkBass.com have joined forces this week. If you visit talkbass.com/cbc, you will be taken to the Contrabass Conversations sponsored forums on TalkBass, where you can suggest guests, comment on previous shows, suggest stories and news items for the podcast, and exchange general podcast feedback and ideas in general.
This is a [...]

 

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This week’s Contrabass Conversations episode features an interview with and music from Chicago Symphony bassist Rob Kassinger. Rob’s musical interests span many genres and include both the electric bass and the double bass. You will learn about Rob’s early years on the bass and how working in jazz and rock settings led to [...]

I am playing a chamber music festival this week and next week in Door County, Wisconsin. The schedule is busy and internet access is extremely limited, so don’t wonder where I went if you don’t hear from me for a day or two. Summer is a time for kicking back, relaxing and maybe [...]

I just did a great interview with Pittsburgh Symphony Principal Bassist Jeff Turner yesterday for Contrabass Conversations. I think that folks will really get a lot of this interview, and I really enjoyed the opportunity to get to sit down wit Jeff and learn his perspectives on the bass and the orchestra business.
This weekend [...]

While recording this week’s Contrabass Conversations episode featuring Michael Hovnanian, I inadvertently fumbled the Gunnelpumpers and Chicago Bass Ensemble introductions, somehow mixing the two together. To clarify, the track that I played on the show was ‘Floobah I’ by the Gunnelpumpers, and the double bass player featured on this track was Gunnelpumpers member Matthew [...]

 

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This week’s Contrabass Conversations episode features an interview with double bassist Michael Hovnanian. Michael has been a member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra since 1989, and he serves as the president of Discordia Music (double bass music publisher). Michael also plays for the Gunnelpumpers, Chicago Bass Ensemble, Music of the Baroque, and the [...]

In addition to hearing CSO Bass Blog author and Chicago Symphony bass section member Michael Hovnanian in a Contrabass Conversations interview this weekend, you will get the chance to hear him play the first movement of the Brahms Cello Sonata in E minor. This was a really excellent interview that both bassists and non-bassists [...]

 

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This week’s Contrabass Conversations episode features a continuation of our interview with Indiana University double bass professor Lawrence Hurst plus some music from plus some music from the Italian bass ensemble The Bass Gang. You can check out episode 20 of the podcast for the first part of this interview with Mr. Hurst, and [...]