Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog

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I just released episode 3 for Contrabass Conversations. You can always subscribe to Contrabass Conversations by visiting the website or clicking the button below. About 20 minutes into the episode there is a great jazz bass solo by Henning Sieverts.Subscribe (it’s free!)
Click to listen (right-click to download)or click player below:powered [...]

As a follow up to my recent IRIS Chamber Orchestra post about our concert with Jason Vieaux playing the Conterto de Aranjez by Joaqin Rodrigo, I thought it would be approtriate to post this video of Paco de Lucia playing this work. the video is about 23 minutes, so fast forward for a [...]

As I was wrapping up my Masters degree from Northwestern University in 2000, reality started to set in. I needed to pay my bills as a musician! I had won a position in the Milwaukee Ballet and in the IRIS Chamber Orchestra (I ended up getting a position in the Elgin Symphony that [...]

We just completed the January IRIS concert tonight here in Memphis, Tennessee, and it really got a great reception. Jason Vieaux played fabulously, and the commission by Adam Schoenberg went really well.
Finding Rothko (Adam’s commission) was a really rich and satisfying piece. It was based on the paintings of Mark Rothko. Here [...]

The IRIS Chamber Orchestra will be performing Saturday, January 13, 2007 at the Germantown Performing Arts Center with the great classical guitarist Jason Vieaux. Additionally, the orchestra will be premiering a work by composer Adam Schoenberg.
The program will consist of:

Adam Schoenberg - World Premiere of IRIS Commissioned Piece - Finding [...]

We just finished up our IRIS Chamber Orchestra concert with the bluegrass trio Time for Three, and these guys completely brought down the house. It was really amazing. These three guys (Zach, Nick, and Ranaan) combine the best of bluegrass with the best of classical playing. Their tunes are filled with quotes [...]

The IRIS Chamber Orchestra of Germantown, Tennessee will be performing this Saturday (12/16/06) with the extremely cool trio Time for Three. Time for Three is made up of Nicolas Kendall and Zachary DePue on violin and Ranaan Meyer on bass. The trio are active MySpacers–you can find their MySpace page at myspace.com/timeforthree. [...]

Play!, the video game symphony, has a medley of Mario tunes hat is worth checking out. Arnie Roth directs this ensemble, and I have worked with Arnie many times in the past in various ensembles. He is based here in Chicago, Illinois, and he does work for the Mannheim Steamroller, Irish Tenors, [...]

I heard this great audition story a few years ago firsthand from the people who were involved. This was one of the rare times where I actually knew both the committee members and the audition candidate in this story.
Auditioning for the Grant Park Symphony
The Grant Park Symphony of Chicago, Illinois was having violin auditions [...]

National Symphony Orchestra bassist and Peabody Institute faculty member Jeffrey Weisner just started a double bass blog. Check it out here. I am also adding it to my Blogroll in the sidebar of this blog. Jeffrey recently wrote a post about his National Symphony colleague Ira Gold. Ira and I used [...]