Contrabass Conversations

Contrabass Conversations

double bass podcast

CBC 107: Michelle Fiore interview

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We’re featuring an interview with Michelle Fiore this week on Contrabass Conversations. Michelle is the proprietor of Classic Contrabass, a shop in Wheeling, Illinois catering exclusively to double bassists. I’ve known Michelle for many years–she was involved for many years with the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Winter Bassfest that I started several years ago. She does great setup and repair work, and she has an excellent selection of double basses for sale as well as quality rental instruments for students.

Michelle had the opportunity to visit the Maggini exhibition in Italy a couple of years ago, an event which featured Dragonetti’s Gasparo da Salo bass from 1590 as well as several other Maggini double basses. She wrote an article about this exhibition last year for the International Society of Bassists‘ Bass World journal, and she discusses in detail some of her observations about these remarkable instruments in this interview. We also chat about instrument setup and how it differs for classical and jazz bassists, sound post adjustments, and many other topics.

CBC 106: Dan Krekeler interview

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We’re featuring an interview with Metropolitan Opera Orchestra bassist Dan Krekeler this week on the podcast. John Grillo of classicalmusicnews.tv and I co-interviewed Dan, which was particularly cool since we’ve both known Dan for many years. I played with Dan in the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and John went to Indiana University with him as an undergraduate. It’s great to see an old friend have such great professional success, and it was a lot of fun to catch up with Dan and hear about his experiences on the road to a major orchestral position.

In our conversations about audition prep, Dan brings up musician coach Don Greene, and I realized that we’ve never actually talked about Don before on any blog posts or podcasts. This is surprising, since I’m a big fan of Don’s concepts and strategies for successful auditioning, so we’ll have to delve more into that topic at a later date.

If you’re in the mood to learn about the world of opera bass playing, these episodes from our archives would be a good start:

CBC 105: Jeremy Kurtz interview part 2

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We’re concluding our interview with San Diego Symphony Principal Bass Jeremy Kurtz on this week’s episode of Contrabass Conversations, plus featuring excerpts from Jeremy’s captivating new solo album Sonatas and Meditations, which can be purchased through the new International Society of Bassists store at www.ISBstore.com. . Check out part 1 of the interview here, and learn more about Jeremy at his website jeremykurtz.com. Enjoy!

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CBC 103: Jeff Bradetich interview 2

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We’re concluding our interview with University of North Texas and Cleveland Institute of Music bass professor Jeff Bradetich on this week’s Contrabass Conversations episode. We featured the first part of this interview on episode 101 of the podcast, and we hope you enjoy hearing the thoughts and perspectives from this wonderful and influential performer and pedagogue. Learn more about Jeff and his new foundation at BradetichFoundation.org.