Paul Ellison will be honored by ASTA's Texas Chapter as "Outstanding Studio Teacher of the Year Award" for 2008. Past recipients include cellist Phyllis Young (for whom the award is named) and violinist Fredell Lack. The award presentation will be held during the Texas Music Educators Association convention in San Antonio at 12:30 PM Friday, February 15^th at the San Antonio Convention Center. The Texas ASTA Board will honor Paul at its annual business meeting in San Antonio, and is collecting tributes and congratulatory messages to be read and presented to him on February 15, 2008. Email your tribute to Cornelia Watkins at rosindust@earthlink.net by Feb. 12, or to Paul directly at pellison@rice.edu.   

 

The ISB is surveying its membership regarding the technology our members use and their preferences for receiving information, as part of a strategic plan for serving ISB members now and in the future. Please take a few minutes to complete this confidential survey by going to http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=hWFTJ521gsiPYf8AuD_2fgLA_3d_3d. The deadline to respond is March 31, 2008. Results will be posted in a future E-Bass Line.

 

Go to http://www.isbworldoffice.com/isb_shop/merchandise.html to purchase the new double bass piano reduction of Peter Askim's "Islands" Concerto (solo and orchestra tunings available), and the new orchestra tuning version of Paul Ramsier's "Divertimento Concertante on a Theme of Couperin." Order either online, or by printing out and mailing in the downloadable order form.

ISB member Matt Hare will perform Bottesini's Allegro di Concerto "Alla Mendelssohn" with the Southwest Symphony in Hobbs, New Mexico on March 9th. This will be the first performance of a new, full orchestration, done by Hare. It features the same instrumentation as the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, allowing the orchestration of the Bottesini to parallel that of the Mendelssohn. Hare will also perform Bottesini's Introduzione e Gavotta on the same program.  

 

The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center presented the New York premiere of Edgar Meyer's Serenade for Double Bass and Wind Octet on January 13th at the New York Society for Ethical Culture.

 

Go to www.vimpvideo.com to order a DVD of the 2007 ISB convention at Oklahoma City University. The DVD includes interviews, sights and sounds of the largest ISB convention ever, plus performance clip extras and more.

 

Fernando Grillo, double bass professor at the Music Conservatory "S. Cecilia" in Rome has a new website, http://www.fernandogrillo.net.

Andrew Kohn is collecting the writings of Theron McClure with hopes of publication. If you have any copies of Ohio Bass Notes, please contact him at Andrew.Kohn@mail.wvu.edu or by phone at 412-621-3758.

COMPETITIONS AND FESTIVALS

The first annual Arizona Bass Players Festival and Workshop will be held March 6-9, 2008, at Arizona State University in Tempe, AZ, co-sponsored by the ASU School of Music, the University Of Arizona School Of Music, and the Northern Arizona University School of Music. Featured guest artists will include Catalin Rotaru, Patrick Neher, Joel DiBartolo, Rufus Reid, Robert Kassinger and Miloslav Jelinek. Robertson and Sons Violin Shop of Albuquerque, NM, is sponsoring a competition for bassists' ages 16 to 22 years, and donating an instrument as first prize. For more information go to www.arizonabassplayers.org.

The festival "Kontrabass-Kaleidoskop" (Double Bass Kaleidoscope) in Michaelstein/Germany, will be held March 10-15, 2008, Silvio Dalla Torre, artistic director. The festival faculty includes Rinat Ibragimov (London), Stephan Petzold (Berlin), François Rabbath (Paris), Hans Roelofsen (Amsterdam), Radoslav Sasina (Bratislava), David Sinclair (Basel); and the musician and psychologist Andreas Burzik (Bremen) will lecture on "Practicing in Flow." Berlin's "Ensemble Concertare" will accompany participants. For more information go to www.kontrabass-kaleidoskop.de.

 

The 5th Biennial Hawaii Contrabass Festival will be held in Honolulu, Hawaii, March 23-31, 2008.  Guest artists will include Hal Robinson, John Clayton, Mark Dresser, Paul Ellison, Todd Seeber, David Gage, and George Rubino. For information go to www.hawaiicbfest.org.

Double bass studies at Ottawa Suzuki Strings "Sound Encounters" music camp in Ottawa, Kansas, June 11-20, 2008, will featured guest artist Harold Robinson, principal bass of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Also on the faculty will be Dennis Whittaker, principal bass with the Houston Grand Opera Orchestra and instructor at the University of Houston, and bass instructor Kristi Knecht from Kansas City. Go to www.ottawasuzukistrings.org or contact Dennis Whittaker, (713) 743-3379.

James VanDemark and Brett Shurtliffe will be double bass faculty for the 38th International Festival-Institute at Round Top, Texas.  June 1-July 13, 2008. Call 979/249 3086 or contact program director Alain Declert at alaind@festivalhill.org. Applications are due before February 15, 2008. For more information go to http://festivalhill.org.

Free tuition, room and board are available to bassists accepted for the WABASS Institute for the 21st Century Bass Player, June 22-29, 2008, in Wabash, Indiana. Faculty members include Hal Robinson, Ranaan Meyer and Eric Larson. Send your 10-minute DVD audition by March 31, 2008 with material of your choosing. From jazz to excerpts and concertos, pick your best 10 minutes and send it in! Anything goes! For information go to www.wabass.com, or email wabasscamp@yahoo.com.