Weekly Wrap-Up

I am wrapping up my portion of the Midsummer’s Music Festival in Door County, Wisconsin this week with some fabulous performances. This is my third summer with this ensemble, and it is a great way to decompress after getting up at 4 a.m. and working until 11 p.m. for the past six months. Combining blogging, podcasting, academics, gigs, and a full bass teaching studio makes for one burned out musician after a while, and going up to the north woods of Wisconsin and relaxing on the beach has been a really nice change.

Heading up to a remote location makes me realize how much my life is based on easy access to the internet. Everything from blogging and podcasting to e-mail and even my calendar (!) revolves around being connected virtually, and going to a place with very little Wi-Fi access really highlights this. Still, it has been nice to kick back and relax for a while. For example, I recorded, edited, and assembled this week’s Contrabass Conversations episode (#26 – Jeff Turner interview) outside under the Aspen trees, with hummingbirds buzzing around me. You can’t even hear the sounds of the road in this remote location in the woods, just birds and squirrels chattering, the sound of the wind, and Lake Michigan pounding against the shore in the distance.

Some of the other musicians in this excellent ensemble include:

Jean and Jim Berkenstock – Lyric Opera of Chicago
Sally Chisholm and David Perry – University of Wisconsin-Madison
Walter and Stephanie Preucil

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We continue our series of interviews with major symphony orchestra professionals with this week’s podcast episode. Featuring Pittsburgh Symphony Principal Bassist Jeff Turner on the show is a real thrill for me—he has a fabulous reputation as a teacher, and he really offers great advice for musicians of all disciplines in this episode.

Our list of former podcast guests is really getting impressive, and stay tuned as it gets ever bigger. This resource will only become more useful as time progresses.

Thus far, we have interviewed the following guests:

Andy Anderson – Section Bass, Lyric Opera of Chicago
Weldon Anderson – former Broadway musician, avant-garde and freelance musician
Bjorn Berkhout – composer of many double bass compositions
Ira Gold – Section Bass, National Symphony Orchestra
John Grillo – Former New World Symphony member, performances with dozens of orchestras
Eric Hochberg – Chicago-area jazz musician
Michael Hovnanian – Section Bass, Chicago Symphony
Lawrence Hurst – Bass Professor, Indiana University
Rob Kassinger – Section Bass, Chicago Symphony
Kate Nettleman – Former New World Symphony member, performances with dozens of orchestras
François Rabbath – double bass solo artist and pedagogue
Greg Sarchet – Section Bass, Lyric Opera of Chicago
Phillip Serna – early music specialist, private teacher and freelance bassist
Jeff Turner – Principal Bass, Pittsburgh Symphony

……..and featured music from the following artists:

Donovan Stokes
Terry Plumeri
Gunnelpumpers
Michael Hovnanian
Scott Worthington
Leon Bosch
Brother Love
Lascivious Biddies
Catalin Rotaru
Francois Rabbath
John Grillo
Phillip Serna
Kate Nettleman
Andy Anderson
Ira Gold
Antonin Bastian
Evan Tate
Mark Gunn
Uncle Seth
Bjorn Berkhout
David Anderson
Rob Kassinger
NYCO
Death Chariot
Peter Lawson
Eric Hochberg
DaXun Zhang

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Not bad for six months! And it’s only going to continue to grow. For example, this week we announced a deal with TalkBass.com, the most popular website for bass players. With a dedicated Contrabass Conversations forum, we now have a very easy way to communicate ideas, suggest guests and tunes, and just get more exposure in general.

You can visit http://TalkBass.com/cbc to participate in this forum. Please do so! If you enjoy the podcast, you can help us by spreading the word. Participate in the forum, get on our e-mail list (for the blog and the podcast), and tell a friend about the podcast. The more listeners the podcast gets, the more options we have for expansion and implementation of new ideas and
attracting new guests to the show.

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I wrote a post this week bemoaning my choice of Blogger as a content management and hosting system. The Blog Bloke chimed in with some excellent advice on this subject, and I am in the process of changing my URL in a way that never breaks old links!
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This week’s posts include:

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VMC Master Class Tracks

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