Interview Guests – Page 142

211: Madeleine Crouch on managing the ISB, organizing conventions, and innovating online

International Society of Bassists general manager is today’s featured guest!

Today’s episode features Madeleine Crouch, who has served as general manager of the International Society of Bassists for the past 25 years. Madeleine and I talk about her musical background, the value of a liberal arts education, the growth of the ISB over the years, and new developments for the organization like the ISB/George Vance Online Research Library, Online Journal of Bass Research, ISB Connect, teacher directory, and luthier directory. We also give a sneak preview of the 50th anniversary convention which will take place at Ithaca College in upstate New York. Enjoy!

Summer camps we cover post-interview:

Golden Gate Bass Camp (I’m on faculty for this event!)
Kansas City Bass Workshop
Peabody Bass Works

Blog post I talk about:

How I’m Doubling My Productivity and Increasing My Happiness

209: Joe Conyers on Curtis, being yourself, and musical entrepreneurship

Philadelphia Orchestra assistant principal bassist Joe Conyers is featured on today’s podcast

I’m thrilled to bring you this episode featuring Joe Conyers. Joe is the assistant principal bass for the Philadelphia Orchestra and is the founder of Project 440, a nonprofit organization that brings music to young people in Philadelphia. We’re joined on this episode by John Grillo, my longtime podcast collaborator.

John and I talk with Joe about topics such as:

growing up in Savannah
studying with Hal Robinson at Curtis
the audition circuit
becoming comfortable with your own playing
the mission of Project 440
conducting Philadelphia’s All-City Orchestra

Enjoy!

208: Guy Tuneh on transcriptions, live performance, and musical curiosity

Soloist and chamber musician Guy Tuneh returns to the podcast

Today’s episode features soloist, chamber musician, and recording artist Guy Tuneh. Guy was on the podcast way back in 2007, and a lot has changed for him in the intervening years. His previous interview was one of our most popular episodes of all time, and in this talk we go even deeper, digging into why Guy makes music, how he approaches every single note he plays, and what motivates him to search out new repertoire and bring it to the double bass.

Guy has been working on several new recording projects, and we feature two of them today. We are including an excerpt from Beethoven’s Romance in G Major before the interview, and we close out the episode with a complete track of Guy performing Bach’s Allemande from the Violin Partita in D minor.

You can learn about Guy’s upcoming solo appearances, recordings, and other details at his website guytuneh.com and on his Facebook page. We also have a video version of this episode on YouTube. Enjoy!

207: Claus Freudenstein on heavy metal, minibasses, and arranging

International Society of Bassists board member Claus Freudenstein is pushing boundaries and creating innovative projects in the world of the double bass

Today we’re featuring Claus Freudenstein, who is pushing the boundaries of the double bass in some really interesting ways. Claus is innovative on a number of fronts. He joined the world of the bass later in life than many people, and he came to it through heavy metal and the electric bass. This resonates greatly with me because this is the exact same way that I arrived at the bass.

Claus has taken this love of heavy metal and channeled it into the Bassmonsters, a bass ensemble that is expanding the repertoire into metal and bringing a whole new audience into the fold. We feature three clips from their first album Classic Meets Rock: Sweet Child O’ Mine by Guns & Roses, Creeping Death by Metallica, and Thriller by Michael Jackson. You can find this album on Spotify, Amazon, and iTunes.

Claus is looking for a new record label to publish the latest Bassmonsters release. He has some tracks to pass along, so listeners, if you have ideas for a new label for Claus, send him an email and let him know.

Claus has also been quite innovative in the world of teaching with his creation and popularization of the mini-bass. We discuss Claus’ work in education, his approach to repertoire, arranging and composing, and many other topics. Enjoy!

206: Auditioning for Music Schools

Trevor Jones and Jason Heath talk music school options at the 2016 Chicago Bass Festival

Trevor Jones and I have done joint clinics in the past, but this is the first one since restarting the podcast, and I figured that it would make sense to put it out this week since we just released our conversation a few days ago.

This talk was held at Ravinia’s Bennett Gordon Hall as part of the 2016 Chicago Bass Festival, which is an event put on by the Midwest Young Artists Conservatory. Michael Cameron of the University of Illinois and Allan Dennis, former double bass professor at the University of Wisconsin and the MYA executive director, were both in the audience, so you’ll hear us refer to both of them a couple of times during the talk.

I left Curtis off of my list of schools putting out successful auditions, but of course that should be at the top of the list! My mistake.

Some of the questions from the audience are kind of hard to hear, you’ll get the gist of the question as soon as Trevor and I start talking again.

We talk about Don Greene’s excellent books on auditioning—all three are highly recommended: