Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog

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Contrabass Conversations frequent collaborator and classicalmusicnews.tv blogger John Grillo continues his Art of the Deficit series this week with a post examining the role that the National Endowment for the Arts plays in the budgets of many symphony orchestras.  John went to a grant workshop for the NEA in 2007 and left with some [...]

Here is audition information for February 2008 posted every month on doublebassblog.org by Phillip W. Serna
For many more auditions, also visit http://www.afm.org/ for information on the auditions below:
Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra
DOUBLE BASS - Section Double
Bass (1 Position)
Resume Date - Postmarked no
later than April 1, 2008
Audition Date - June 8-10,
2008
Starting Date - Employment
may begin as soon [...]

 

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Contrabass Conversations regular contributor and classicalmusicnews.tv blogger John Grillo and I recorded a follow-up episode to our recent Opera Excerpt Breakdown episode. In this episode we chat a little more generally about opera bass playing and how it differs from orchestral bass playing.
John has played for numerous opera companies in the past, including the [...]

 

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This week’s Contrabass Conversations episode features an in-depth analysis of the double bass opera excerpts most commonly requested at auditions. Double bassist (and regular Contrabass Conversations guest and co-host) John Grillo discusses each of these excerpts–stylistic considerations, differences in articulation and bow strokes, and suggestions for effectively learning them–and then performs them. We believe [...]

Adaptistration: How To Connect With New Media: Part 1
This is a wonderful post from Adaptistration blogger (and fellow Inside the Arts blogger) Drew McManus on what the new media is and how to connect with it. (BTW….. you’re looking at the “new media” if you’re reading this post!)
(tags: insidethearts adaptistration new media classical music [...]

Michael Hovnanian on Boulez
From Michael: “Boulez also has a charmingly offhand way of dismissing the sort of know-it-all questions from players that tend to crop up when a so-called ‘important’ conductor takes the podium.”
(tags: chicago symphony double bass blog)

The Collaborative Piano Blog: YouTube of Talk to the Hand from Jerry Springer the Opera
(tags: humor classical [...]

Double bassist and classical music blogger John Grillo put out a recent post on his blog highlighting his upcoming performances of Verdi’s Rigoletto with Opera New Jersey.  John writes:
I look forward to playing Rigoletto again.  This is my second time tackling this mighty work.  It is really an outstanding piece of art with many heavenly [...]

Double bassist and classicalmusicnews.tv blogger John Grillo and I just wrapped up an opera excerpt breakdown for the Contrabass Conversations show. This is an extension of the orchestra excerpt breakdown that we began on episode 41 of the program. On this episode, we featured the following excerpts, with some commentary plus a recording [...]

A Week in the Life is a brief series chronicling a quirky but nevertheless quite typical week in the life of a mid-tier freelance musician.  Though the sort of wacky events I’ve described thus far undoubtedly happen in orchestras of all flavors, from the Berlin Philharmonic to the community orchestra down the block from me, [...]

Lyric Opera of Chicago bassist (and Contrabass Conversations guest) Greg Sarchet sent me a link to what is pretty much the greatest bass video of all time. I’m not sure whether to put an ‘explicit’ warning on this one–let’s just say that you may want to skip this one if you have delicate sensibilities.
For [...]