The New School

Mannes College of Music

• State: New York
• Private School
• School Website

Orin O’Brien, bass faculty

• Email Orin

Doug Weiss, bass faculty

• Email Doug

Johannes Weidnmueller, bass faculty

• Email Johannes
• Johannes’s Website

General Statistics

• US News Ranking: #129 (tie) in National Universities
• US News Overall Score (out of 100): 42
• Tuition & Fees 2016-17: $45,535
• Room & Board 2016-17: $18,420
• Total Enrollment: 10,174
• Acceptance Rate (from 2015): 67%
• Student – Faculty Ratio: 9:1
• 4 year graduation rate: 49%
• % of undergrads receiving Financial aid: 46%
• Average Financial Aid: $16,813

Double Bass Statistics

• Average number of undergraduate bass students: 3
• Average number of graduate bass students: 4
• Orchestral Repertoire Class, Credited Chamber Music, Studio Class, Bass Ensembles, Sight Reading, Theory and Performance

Other Distinctions

• Music School Central Top 10 Colleges for Jazz 2014 (#4)
• Christian Howes’ Best College Programs for Creative String Players

What Alumni Are Doing

• Freelancing in NY area
• playing in Israel orchestras
• member of Hong Kong Philharmonic
• teaching in Melbourne, Australia
• freelancing in London, England
• Alex Claffy is playing with pianist Joey Alexander
• Rick Rosato has toured internationally with Gilad Hekselman

Perspectives from the Bass Faculty

Q: What are some of your favorite experiences teaching at your school?

Orin: Teaching the bass repertoire classes: seeing bassists learn from Joseph Colaneri (conducting staff of Met. Opera) how to play opera.

Mannes also has a great cooperating bass faculty: students share and like playing together.

Doug: I love meeting young musicians, and turning them on to the ideals passed to me from my Masters: Al Foster, Ron Carter, Rufus Reid, Todd Coolman, and Gary Peacock have all personally shared their wealth of ideas and experience with me. I strive to do the same.

Students are within walking distance of the Village Vanguard, Smalls, Mezzrow, the 55 Bar, Cornelia Street Cafe, the Blue Note, the Jazz Standard, and La Lanterna. The music is in the clubs, and in Washington Square park. Greenwhich Village is still the epicenter of the New York Jazz Community.

About The Bass Faculty

Orin O’Brein

New York Philharmonic bassist Orin O’Brien was born in Hollywood to parents in the film industry, George O’Brien and Marguerite Churchill, and received her early musical training in Los Angeles, where she studied with Milton Kestenbaum and Herman Reinshagen. She then studied in New York with Frederick Zimmermann and graduated from The Juilliard School, and is an alumna of the Music Academy of the West, now a partner in the New York Philharmonic Global Academy.

She has been a member of the New York Philharmonic since 1966, where she has played with the world’s leading conductors. She has participated in numerous chamber music festivals, including Marlboro, and in first performances of the Gunther Schuller Quartet for Four Double Basses. She co-chaired the double bass department of The Juilliard School for ten years, and currently serves on the faculties of the Manhattan School of Music and Mannes College of Music. Her most recent chamber music performances were the quintets of Schubert and Dvorak with the Guarneri String Quartet.

Doug Weiss

Doug Weiss, a graduate of William Paterson College (BMus 1988), is a mainstay in the International music scene, with performance, recording, and teaching credits across a broadly diverse group of Artists and institutions.

Weiss has supported Joe Williams, Lee Konitz, Kevin Hays, Brian Blade, Eddie Henderson, Marc Copland, Norman Simmons, Victor Lewis,  Bill Stewart, Peter Bernstien, Brad Mehldau, Leon Parker, Harold Maburn, Louis Hayes, Eric Alexander, Jimmy Greene, Chris Potter, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Lew Tabakin, George Coleman, Walt Weiskopf, Mike Moreno,  Eli Digibri, Pete Malinverni,  the VJO, Lizz Wright, and Pete Seeger.

He has been the musical director of the Al Foster quartet since 1999. In 2015 he co-produced a retrospective of Foster’s music, arranged by Mike Holober, for the WDR Big Band.

Weiss has taught at New School University since 1991 and SUNY Purchase since 2004. He has presented at clinics in Stanford, Eilat, Barcelona, Begues, Quito, Veracruz, Skidmore, Ravenna, Rovigo, Zarautz, Stockholm, Helsinki, and Minsk.