Biographies

DAVID HEYES (Double Bass)

David Heyes studied double bass with Laurence Gray and Bronwen Naish and later at the Royal College of Music in London with Rodney Slatford. He completed his post-graduate studies in Prague with the renowned soloist and teacher, Frantisek Posta (Principal Double Bass, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra). David is in great demand and his engagements as a soloist, teacher and ambassador for the double bass have taken him to 11 countries over the past six years. He has been a juror at a number of international competitions and was Chairman of the Jury for the 2008 Brno International Double Bass Competition, held at the Janacek Academy of Music & Drama (Czech Republic). 
David was appointed as Specialist Double Bass Tutor at Wells Cathedral School, a position he has held for 13 years, and for a year was Contemporary Performer-in-Residence at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. He is a founder member of Ensemble Bassissimo, Basso Bravura! (with soprano Sarah Poole) and Duo Concertante (with solo violinist Catherine Lord), is Director of The Vienna Collection, London Chamber Soloists and Bass-Fest, and in recent years has premiered nine contemporary concertos for double bass.

David's collaborative work gained him a prestigious award from the David Walter Charitable Trust of New York for his pioneering activities as a soloist, teacher, publisher and commissioner of new music for double bass. He works with composers throughout the world and is particularly interested to expand the double bass repertoire, by commissioning new works and by rediscovering forgotten ones, and since 1990 more than 420 works have been written for him.

In 1986 David founded the publishing company Recital Music and in 1994 The British & International Bass Forum (BIBF). He is an acknowledged authority on the history of the double bass having written articles and reviews for the leading specialist magazines including The Strad, Bass News, Music Teacher, Double Bassist, ESTA News & Views and Classical Music.

David has given recitals, masterclasses and workshops throughout Britain and abroad including UK (Trinity College of Music, Royal Northern College of Music, Royal Academy of Music, Royal Welsh College of Music), USA (University of Montana, University of North Texas), China (Central Conservatory, Beijing), Norway (Norwegian Academy of Music), Netherlands (Rotterdam Conservatoire), Spain (Palma Conservatoire, Inca School of Music), Portugal (Escola Superior de Musica, Porto) and Denmark (Carl Nielsen Academy).
Since the beginnning of 2009 David has also presented 'The Classical Hour' - a monthly programme about classical music for Frome FM in Somerset.

David has a busy concert and masterclass schedule in 2010/11 including invitations to Denmark, Italy and America.

"... a dazzling display of the instrument's bel canto qualities" [Music & Musicians magazine]

"... wonderfully well played, the dazzling passage-work splendidly executed with cheerful geniality" [Bath Chronicle]

TONY OSBORNE

Tony Osborne is an important educationalist and prolific composer who has made a significant and unique contribution to the double bass repertoire over the past 35 years. His solo music for young bassists is included by many international examination boards, and his many ensembles pieces are performed at workshops and concerts throughout the world. Tony Osborne notes the influences of Gershwin, Copland and Bernstein, alongside some of the Russian masters, on his music, which he combines with a jazzy, rhythmic and energetic style that has been popular with players and audiences worldwide.

Born in 1947 into a musical family, Tony Osborne studied at the Royal Academy of Music (London) with John Walton (double bass) and Richard Stoker (composition), and divides a busy career between composing, teaching and performing. A very prolific composer and arranger, Tony's original compositions include works in almost every genre, notably Chaconne Syncopations and Wainwright's Ways for brass quintet, Celebration Fanfare for brass ensemble, the musical A Fine Time for Wine, a beautiful and dramatic Requiem and many works for string orchestra.

In 2001 Tony Osborne was elected an ARAM (Associate of the Royal Academy of Music) for his pioneering and important work for double bass, and has been a featured composer at Bass-Fest for the past decade. He was a very successful BIBF Composer-in-residence in 2002-3 and wrote a number of impressive and innovative works for the project. He has been a judge for the British Composer Awards over the past few years and has been a judge for the BIBF Composition Competition since 1999. Recital Music is planning a major festival of Tony Osborne's music in 2012, to celebrate the composer's 65th birthday, and has formulated a 10-year project to publish all his works for double bass.
www.tony-osborne.com

ARMAND RUSSELL

Armand Russell was born in Seattle, Washington in 1932. He received the Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees from the University of Washington, with a major in music composition, and a Doctorate in music composition from the Eastman School of Music. He studied double bass with Leslie Martin, who played in the Seattle Symphony and Boston Symphony Orchestras, and at the Eastman School of Music with Oscar Zimmerman. His composition studies were with John Verrall and George McKay at the University of Washington, and with Bernard Rogers and Howard Hanson at the Eastman School.

Professionally, Armand Russell played double bass in many orchestras including the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops Tour Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic and Civic Orchestras, and Honolulu Symphony. For five years he taught as a visiting Professor at the Eastman School of Music. From 1961 to 1994 he taught at the University of Hawaii Music Department and retired as Professor emeritus in 1994. While at the University of Hawaii he taught music theory, composition and double bass and also served as Chair of the Music Department for seven years.

Armand Russell has composed many works for double bass and also percussion, including solos, chamber music and concertos. Some of his most frequently performed works include Chaconne (Db/Pno), Buffo Set (Db/Pno), Harlequin Concerto (Db/Orch), Pas de Deux (Cl/Perc), Percussion Suite, Theme & Fantasia (Concert Band) and Suite Concertante (Tuba/Wind Quintet). He has also composed several works for choirs in recent years and has continued to write for the double bass alongside a growing body of chamber music and transcriptions.

Armand Russell's compositional style is confident and direct with a clarity of line and texture always to the fore. A modern, yet lyrical and accessible style, has created works which communicate equally to performers and audiences alike and he has made, and continues to make, a unique and valuable contribution to the double bass litereature throughout a long and successful career.

Recital Music is planning a celebration of Armand Russell's music at Bass-Fest in 2012 to celebrate the composers 80th birthday.

HUMPHREY CLUCAS

Humphrey Clucas was born in 1941 and read English at King's College, Cambridge, where he was also a Choral Scholar. Having taught English for twenty-seven years he subsequently became a Lay Vicar at Westminster Abbey but is now retired.

As a composer he is self taught, and although he is well-known for a set of Anglican Responses written as an undergraduate, almost all his serious music has been written over the last twenty-five years. He has a growing reputation as a choral composer and has produced an impressive and steady stream of choral works, both sacred and secular, alongside much instrumental music. He has written works for Cathedrals in Chichester, Guildford, Salisbury and Winchester, as well as for King's College, Cambridge, Southwell Minster and Westminster Abbey.

PETER LAMB

Peter Lamb was born in London in 1925 and studied composition at Trinity College of Music, subsequently with Arthur Benjamin, and was awarded a Fellowship of Trinity College for his First String Quartet.

He has combined a busy career as a professional composer and music administrator, initially working for two international record companies before an appointemnt as Deputy Manager of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. Here he worked on programme building with the eminent conductor Constantin Silvestri, and also helped to establish the Bournemouth Sinfonietta. For ten years he was Head of Music at Peter Symonds' College in Winchester and, prior to his retirement, lectured at the University of Southampton for eight years.

Peter Lamb's music has been performed worldwide, from Britain, France and Sweden, to Brazil, Canada and America, and significant works include a Flute Sonata, Flute Sonatina, Duologue for oboe and piano, a String Quartet, Concerto for viola and string orchestra, Wind Quintet, and many unaccompanied choral works. His compositional style combines a quintessentially English quality with a clarity of line and expression, incorporating a rich and varied harmonic palette and a gallic charm, producing music of strong character and distinction.

In recent years Peter Lamb has written a number of works for double bass - for players of all ages and abilities - helping to increase the quality and breadth of modern English music for the instrument.

GIOVANNI BOTTESINI

"How he bewildered us by playing all sorts of melodies in flute like harmonics, as though he had a hundred nightingales caged in his double bass... I never wearied of his consummate grace and finish, his fatal precision, his heavenly tone, his fine taste. One sometimes yearned for a touch of human imperfection, but he was like a dead shot; he never missed what he aimed at, and he never aimed at less than perfection."  [H.Haweis, 1888]

Giovanni Bottesini was called the 'Paganini of the Double Bass' and was the finest double bass soloist of the 19th-century. He was born in Crema (Lombardy) on 24 December 1821 and studied at the double bass at the Milan Conservatoire with Luigi Rossi, alongside harmony and composition with Nicola Vaccai (1790-1848) and Francesco Basili (1767-1850). His remarkable career as a soloist began in 1839 and lasted fifty years, taking him to every corner of the world. From Italy, his travels took him to Cuba (1846), USA (1847), England (annually from 1849), Egypt, Ireland, France, Germany, Russia, Mexico, Spain, Belgium, Monte carlo and many other countries throughout a long and distinguished career.

Bottesini was also famous as a composer writing at least 13 operas (Cristoforo Colombo, 1847 / Il diavolo della notte, 1856 / Ali Baba, 1871 / Ero e Leandro, 1879), a Messa da Requiem (1880) and an oratorio, The Garden of Olivet (1887 - first performed at the Norwich Festival), works for orchestra, 11 string quartets, string quintets, songs and many virtuoso works for double bass. As a conductor he is remembered primarily for directing the first performance of Verdi's Aida in Cairo in 1871, but was also a repsected composer of Italian opera, including seasons in Mexico, Paris, Palermo, Barcelona, London, Buenos Aires and Parma.

Bottesini's music for double bass is still at the heart of the solo repertoire into the 21st-century, even though his orchestral and operatic music has generally fallen from favour, but his Elegia for double bass and piano is one of the most recorded works of the 20th-century. 

Giovanni Bottesini died in Parma on 7 July 1889.

TEPPO HAUTA-AHO

Finnish composer and bassist Teppo Hauta-aho, is the most prolific bass composer of our time and since the 1970s has composed almost 300 works for double bass - spanning the entire range of standards from beginner to virtuoso.

Teppo Hauta-aho was born in 1941 and studied double bass with Orvo Hyle and Oiva Nummelin in Finland, and Frantisek Posta in Prague. He played with the Helsinki Philharmonic between 1965 and 1972, and the Finnish Opera Orchestra from 1975 to 2000. He is an active recitalist, both classical and jazz, has given more than 300 recitals with his duo partner, Carita Holmström, and is at the cutting edge of modern improvisation - performing with leading improvisers throughout the world.

Finnish composer Harry Wessman writes: "As a composer, Teppo Hauta-aho has always been his own teacher, basing his technical knowledge on his wide practical musicianship as an orchestral player, chamber and jazz musician. It would not be an exaggeration to claim that he was the jazz bassist most in demand in Finland in the 1970s, and a few of his works are pure jazz compositions. But the compositional techniques and musical means used in the majority of his works originate in an unusual openness for any devices. Along with modern techniques, his source of inspiration include all the previous stylistic periods in European music, impulses from Oriental music and, of course, jazz. His own instrument, the double bass, has profited especially from his rich inventiveness in finding new means to conjure forth unusual sounds from the instrument, and in applying them in an artistically meaningful and striking way."

Hauta-aho's music has been performed extensively in Finland and abroad, notably in America, Britain, Germany, France, Czech Republic, Soviet Union, Australia and Switzerland. His most famous work Kadenza (1978) has achieved cult-like status, is recognised universally as a 20th-century classic, and id the most performed contemporary work for double bass.

MILOSLAV GAJDOS

Miloslav Gajdos is one of Europe's most active and inventive bassist-composers. He was born in northern Moravia in 1948 and initially learned violin before transferring to the double bass, studying with Alois Kriz, Jiri Bortlicek and Ludwig Streicher. He has been Professor of Double Bass at the Vejvenovsky Conseravtoire in Kromeriz (Czech Republic) since 1971, and was a member of the Olomouc Symphony Orchestra for a number of years. He is Director of the Gregora International Double Bass Competition, founded in 1979 and held every two years in Kromeriz, and has been a juror at many competitions in Hungary, Germany and the Czech Republic.

Miloslav Gajdos is a prolific composer and arranger and, for almost 40 years, has produced a vast body of original works and transcriptions for double bass which are performed worldwide. His original works combine Czech lyricism and melody with brilliant technical demands, and music from one to sixteen double basses. He writes in a traditional and accessible style, producing music for every level of performer, particularly for the advanced bassist, and his many works for unaccompanied double bass are frequently chosen as international competition repertoire.

Miloslav Gajdos was Recital Music's Featured Composer in 2007 and has recently revised a number of earlier works for the intermediate bassist which will be published by Recital Music.
[Gajdos is pronounced GUY-DOSH]

DAVID ELLIS

David Ellis was born in Liverpool in 1933 and studied at the Royal Manchester College of Music from 1953-57. His work as a composer began to be recognised at this time, not only through performances but also from important and prestigious commissions and awards including the Royal Philharmonic Prize, Ricordi Prize, Theodore Holland Award, Royal Manchester Institution Silver Medal and a Gulbenkian Award.

From 1964 onwards David Ellis worked at the BBC and was subsequently appointed Head of Music, BBC North before becoming Artistic Director and Composer-in-Residence of the Northern Chamber Orchestra in 1986. In 1994 he left the NCO to help set up the Orquestra Sinfónica Portuguesa, based in Lisbon, before returning to the UK to concentrate exclusively on composition.

An impressive work list comprises compositions in almost every genre from opera, choral and vocal, to orchestral, concertos, brass band and chamber music.