It boggles my mind at just how much is going on in the bass world each week!  Here’s my best stab at corralling all that’s going on out there.  Feel free to send me an email with any updates of your own!

Best Bass Duet Setting Ever!

Kate Jones and Jesse McQuarters hiked up to the summit of Mt. Evans (14,264 ft / 4348 m) with their basses to perform the world’s most epically set duet:

The world took notice, and the video has gotten a whopping 25,000 views at the time of this writing.  That qualifies as viral for sure!

Speaking of viral, if you haven’t checked out Mikyung Sung’s Fryba Suite video (coming up on almost a million views on Facebook), be sure to check that out as well.

Lloyd Goldstein also has a beautiful new piece out titled A Walk In The Woods.

Something Every Bassist Should Read

Nina DeCesare put out a thoughtful and important post on her blog recently.  Titled “That thing is bigger than you!”; Why We Need More Female Bassists in Professional Orchestras, it digs into sobering male/female audition numbers, audition and excerpt culture, and much more.  Highly recommended.

If you haven’t, be sure to do so below.  We didn’t talk about this topic specifically, but I hope to do so soon.

Bass Camp Wrap-Ups

As we head into the middle portion of summer, a great number of bass camps have wrapped up.  Here are a few links to check out photos and videos from some recent camps:

• Golden Gate Bass Camp
• Austin Bass Workshop – posts from Hans Sturm and Jessica Valls
• RCM String Showcase from Caroline Emery
• KC Bass Workshop – again from Hans Sturm

Finally, here’s a great video from Bass Coalition featuring Andres Martin explaining why not making a decision is the worst decision of all:

New Websites

It seems like a bunch of folks are updating their websites as of late (including me with Contrabass Conversations!).  Here are a few I’ve found:

• Claus Freudenstein
• Paul Sharpe
• Monika Kwiatkowska
• Danny Ziemann

Do you have a new website, or have you done an overhaul recently?  Send me a message and I’ll put it out on the blog!

Congratulations

Congratulation to Max Dimoff for his new position as Associate Professor of Music at The University of Michigan!

Congratulations also to Joe Conyers for his cover article in International Musician!

Quick Links

• there’s an amazing middle school string job in Las Vegas – strong program in a great district – message me if you want more details
• Jacque Harper wrote a thoughtful post (with references to my Gary Karr interview) about the experience of pushing the reset button on technique – great read!
• speaking of Gary Karr, here’s a video from back in the day with Gary working with school kids at UW-Madison – talk about total mastery of the young person’s concert art form!
• Noah Kagan of AppSumo put out a podcast episode about making an “NPR-style” podcast – this has totally changed the way I’m thinking about my podcast – it only took 400 episodes for me to figure this out…
• David Heyes is organizing Typically Teppo, a new recording project to celebrate of the music of Finnish bassist-composer Teppo Hauta-aho
• Can a flawed performance hold more meaning than a perfect one? – from The Strad
• Megan McDevitt has a burnin’ recording of Edgar Meyer’s Concert Duo up on YouTube
• Szymon Marciniak‘s bass is beautifully repaired – great news!
• The True History of The Longest-Serving Double Bassist (Jane Little) – from The New Yorker, and thanks for Sue Wulff for pointing me to this

And finally, my bass bud Geoff Chalmers has a new course on soloing.  Sample a video below:

That’s it for this week.  Send me any bass news you’d like shared, and tune into the podcast for in-depth coverage on what’s happening in the world of the bass!