Oberlin College

• State: Ohio
• Private School
• School Website
• Music School Central Top 10 Colleges for Music for 2014 (#15)
• Oberlin Bass Workshop/ Hinton Bass Institute at Oberlin

Scott Dixon, bass faculty

• Email Scott
• Scott’s Website

Peter Dominguez, bass faculty

• Email Peter
• Peter’s Website

Tracy Rowell, bass faculty

• Email Tracy
• Tracy’s Website
• Contrabass Conversations Interview

Derek Zadinsky, bass faculty

• Email Derek
• Derek’s Website

General Statistics

• US News Ranking: #24 (tie) in National Liberal Arts Colleges
• US News Overall Score (out of 100): 81
• Tuition & Fees 2016-17: $52,002
• Room & Board 2016-17: $14,010
• Total Enrollment: 2,929
• Acceptance Rate (from 2015): 29%
• Student – Faculty Ratio: 9:1
• 4 year graduation rate: 75%
• % of undergrads receiving Financial aid: 47%
• Average Financial Aid: $34,557

Double Bass Statistics

• Average number of undergraduate bass students: 25
• Studio Class, Orchestral Repertoire Class, Bass Ensembles, PI, Small Jazz, Chamber Ens, Baroque, New Music, Sinfonietta, Chamber, Opera, Symphony Orchestras

What Alumni Are Doing

• Scott Dixon (Cleveland Orchestra, 2007)
• Philip Alejo – University of Arizona professor of bass
• Ben Jaffe -Preservation Hall Jazz Band
• Zack Hickman – Josh Ritter
• Moppa Eliot – MOPDTK
• Nate Brenner- TuneYards
• Emma Dayhuff- Chi-Nyc w/ Victor Goines
• Alex Frank-LA studio & film
• Chris Mees Nyc & J.Chriss & co.

Perspectives from the Bass Faculty

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

Peter: Just being witness to so many player/personal transformations when mind and talent finds purpose and intent. Hearing voice(s) emerge while teaching community and sharing is the ultimate reward.

About The Bass Faculty

Scott Dixon

Scott Dixon joined the bass section of the world-renowned Cleveland Orchestra in 2007. As a member of the Orchestra, Scott performs with many of the world’s top musicians in concert venues across the globe including the Lucerne, Salzburg, and Edinburgh Festivals, Carnegie Hall, the Musikverein in Vienna, and the Orchestra’s home, Severance Hall. With his colleagues in the Orchestra he has performed on numerous audio and video recordings with artists including Music Director Franz Welser-Most, Pierre Boulez, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Mitsuko Uchida, and Measha Brueggergosman.

In 2011 Scott served on the faculty of the Domaine Forget summer bass workshop alongside his former teacher, Paul Ellison. He has given masterclasses at the International Society of Bassists (ISB) Convention, the Cleveland Institute of Music, Duquesne University, and others.

Scott performs with the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), including recent performances at the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center and the world premier recording of John Adam’s Son of Chamber Symphony, conducted by the composer.

Scott holds a Bachelor’s degree from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and a Master’s degree from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music. He was a fellow at the New World Symphony under Michael Tilson Thomas, and a fellowship student at the Aspen Music Festival and School.

In addition to performing with the Orchestra and teaching, Scott is active in chamber and solo music, and is committed to expanding the mainstream repertoire to include historical performance and contemporary music.

Peter Dominquez

In the worlds of both jazz and classical music, Peter Dominguez is a renowned bassist and educator. He has performed with artists such as Tommy Flanagan, Benny Carter, and Woody Shaw, toured with the American Sinfonietta, studied with bass legends like Richard Davis and Robert Gladstone, and helped to form Michigan State University’s Jazz Studies program.

Peter Dominguez grew up in Milwaukee playing with his father, jazz pianist and singer Frank DeMiles. His teachers include Bernard Stepner, Willard Feldman, Clyde Russell, and Mitch Covic, as well as Roger Ruggeri and Richard Davis at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he earned baccalaureate and masters degrees. In 1980 he became the first recipient of the Milton J. Hinton Scholarship Competition Award and continued doctoral studies with Lucas Drew at the University of Miami, Coral Gables.

Eventually securing positions in both the Florida Philharmonic and at Michigan State University, Dominguez chose MSU, serving as professor of double bass and jazz studies from 1984-96, and was instrumental in developing its jazz studies program. During his Michigan years, he continued his studies with Robert Gladstone, former principal bassist of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

Having pursued double bass performance for 38 years in a variety of musical styles, Dominguez has appeared in venues throughout the Americas and Europe. He continues to perform with an impressive array of jazz, Latin, and classical artists—Benny Carter, Tommy Flanagan, Jon Hendricks, J.J. Johnson, John Lewis, Mark Murphy, Woody Shaw, Ira Sullivan, the Miami String Quartet, the Los Angeles Piano Quartet, the St. Petersburg Quartet, the Roycroft Chamber Players, and the Fontana Chamber Players.

As principal bassist, he served 10 years with the American Sinfonietta, 12 years with the Greater Lansing Symphony Orchestra, and with the Jackson and Kalamazoo symphonies. As a section bassist, he’s worked with the Miami Chamber Symphony, Florida Philharmonic, and Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

Outside of Oberlin, Dominguez teaches and adjudicates actively at International Society of Bassists conferences, international master classes and competitions, and the annual conference of the Richard Davis Foundation for Young Bassists, of which he sits on the board of directors.

Tracy Rowell

Tracy Rowell is an active performer and teacher in the Cleveland area. Formerly the Assistant Principal Bassist of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, Canada, Tracy currently serves as Principal Bass for CityMusic Cleveland.

Ms. Rowell has also performed with orchestras such as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops Orchestra, North Carolina Symphony, and Carmel Bach Festival. She may be heard as a soloist in Telemann’s Grillen-Symphonie with Apollo’s Fire (Koch International recording).

As a chamber musician, Ms. Rowell has collaborated with musicians from the Cavani, St. Lawrence, Pacifica, and Parker string quartets. She teaches at the University of Akron and is on the preparatory faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music. She is a frequent clinician at such bass workshops as the Institut Francois Rabbath Summer Bass Workshop, the Kansas City Bass Workshop, and Peabody Bass Works.

She has received fellowships from the Aspen Music Festival, the Tanglewood Music Center, and the Solti Orchestral Project at Carnegie Hall. Ms. Rowell studied with Paul Ellison at Rice University, and received her Masters degree from Boston University as a student of Edwin Barker.

Derek Zadinsky

Derek Zadinsky joined the Cleveland Orchestra bass section in January 2012 after serving as principal bass with Symphony in C (formerly the Haddonfield Symphony) in Camden, New Jersey. He has performed as a substitute musician with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, and the New World Symphony in Miami. In 2011, he won first place in the International Society of Bassists Orchestral Competition in San Francisco.

Zadinsky started teaching at Cleveland State University in the fall of 2012, Cleveland Institute of Music in the fall of 2013, and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in the fall of 2014. In 2015, he taught a master class at the Colburn School in Los Angeles and taught and performed in the Rabbath Workshop at Oberlin. In 2014, he published an edition of Bach’s Cello Suite No. 5.

As a soloist, Zadinsky has performed with the Seattle Symphony, the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen Orchestra, and twice in Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium with string orchestra. Those performances included Giovanni Bottesini’s Concerto No. 2 and his own arrangement of Pablo de Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen.

A native of Issaquah, Washington, Zadinsky earned a bachelor of music degree from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he studied with soloist Edgar Meyer and Harold Robinson. He continued his studies with Meyer at the Aspen Music Festival and School during the summers of 2007-09. Prior to his studies at Curtis, he studied privately for four years with Jordan Anderson. Previous teachers also include Patrick and Leslie Marckx, and Joseph Dyvig.

Zadinsky plays on an English bass attributed to the workshop of Thomas Dodd in London (circa 1790) and a custom five-string model by Paul Hart of Salt Lake City (2014).