Collaborative Contrabass

Double Bassist Emma Sullivan presents the fourth concert of her doctoral project. The program includes:

  • duets for double bass and violin, viola and oboe by Edgar Meyer, Erkki-Sven Tüür, John Tartaglia, Andrea Clearfield, Andrew Ford and Behzad Ranjbaran.
  • Two Stepduet for viola and double bass by Catherine Milliken (world premiere)
  • Berio’s Psy for …

Edicson Ruiz performs Holliger, Moser, Kelterborn

Edicson Ruiz will be doing a recital of solo works for double bass in Basel Switzerland.

On the program:

  • … very gently with bass … ‘Hommage à Mayröcker Friederike — Roland Moser
  • Kontrabass-Notenheft — Rudolf Kelterborn
  • Preludio e Fuga — Heinz Holliger

New Music for Solo Bass: Malachy Robinson

Malachy Robinson plays new works written by members of the Irish Composers’ Collective.

  • Popping the Bass — Maria Minguella
  • More — Daniel Reid
  • Variations for Double-Bass — Eoghan Desmond
  • Purr — Susan Geaney
  • Bodhrán 1.0 — Ryan Molloy
  • Coffin Ship Lullaby — …

Leap of Faith (Matthew Kline) performed by Matthew Kline

Another dose of awesome from the Fresh Inc festival and Matthew Kline.

There’s a beep that goes off part way through that reminded me of this one time I saw Kronos doing Black Angels and in the middle movement, when everything is all quiet and peaceful, an older woman in the audience’s phone rings and then the woman answers it and proceeds to have a short conversation with the caller.

The beep in this, however, isn’t quite so intrusive. Perhaps owing to the steady-rhythm nature of the work. Hell, maybe it was planned or a general feature of the Racine Art Museum. Either way, enjoy this dose of bass textures.

Bass & Kalimba assemblage by Olivier Babaz

Here’s an interesting augmentation of the double bass: an attached kalimba (aka “thumb piano”). Olivier Babaz gives us his rendition of Paul Desmond’s “Take Five” while also playing a shaker with his foot, one-man-band style.

Augmenting the instrument in this way obviously opens up tons of interesting possibilities for acoustic performance in the same way that pickups opens up opportunities for electronic performance.

Not sure I’d permanently mount a kalimba on my bass, but this is pretty interesting!

Cave: for solo double bass, live electronics, and interactive video (Jazer Giles) performed by Salvatore Macchia

Here is a recording of the world premiere performance of Cave: for solo double bass, live electronics, and interactive video. This is a pretty heavy Max/MSP/Jitter thing. Disclaimer: I used to study with Macchia and it’s fun to hear the control he brings to a piece like this, where it could probably just as easy disintegrate into noise he keeps it musical. Fun sounding and and looking piece.