Gary Karr

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Gary Karr

Gary Michael Karr (born November 20, 1941 in Los Angeles , California ) is a Canadian musician of American origin. He is considered one of the leading virtuosos on the double bass .

Live and act

From the age of nine, Karr received intensive lessons from bassist Uda Demenstein. He then studied at UCLA with Herman Reinshagen , then at Northwestern University with Warren Benfield and finally at the Juilliard School with Stuart Sankey .

From the beginning of his musical career in 1961, Karr was active almost exclusively as an instrumental soloist, which is a novelty in the history of the double bass. In 1961 he began with the Chicago Little Symphony under Thor Johnson. In 1962 he played with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in Leonard Bernstein's youth concerts at Carnegie Hall . KEr has performed as a soloist with major orchestras around the world, including the Chicago Symphony, the London Philharmonic, the Orchester Symphonique de Montréal, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra. In 1972 there was a television series about him called Gary Karr and His Friends . With the pianist, organist and harpsichordist Harmon Lewis he has performed as a duo internationally in concerts and at music festivals such as the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad, the Edinburgh Festival , the Bergen Festival and the Victoria International Festival in British Columbia.

He played most of his recordings on a double bass that Serge Koussevitzky's widow gave him. An example is a production by RIAS Berlin in coproduction with Schwann from 1979, which was awarded the “ German Record Prize ”. It contains works by Koussevitzky, Dragonetti and Paganini, played by Gary Karr and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Uroš Lajovic . Works by Hans Werner Henze , Vittorio Giannini , John W. Downey , Gunther Schuller , Lalo Schifrin and Robert Rodriguez were written for him.

Karr has also taught at the Juilliard School , Yale University , Indiana University , the New England Conservatory and the University of Wisconsin . In 1996 he started KarrKamp , an intensive month-long summer school for bassists at the University of Victoria .

Since he retired from the concert business in 2001, Karr has devoted himself primarily to educational tasks; he taught at the Victoria Summer Music Festival . He also wrote for music magazines. In 1997 he became a Canadian citizen.

Prizes and awards

Karr received a valuable bronze medal from the Rosa Ponselle Foundation in 1992, which recognized him as an outstanding lyric musician. In 1997 he was named Artist / Teacher of the Year by the American String Teachers Association . The International Society of Double Bassists , which he co-founded in 1967 , awarded him the Distinguished Achievement Award in 1995 and the Distinguished Teacher Award in 2001 .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ This instrument was ascribed to the baroque North Italian violin making school Amati , but according to recent studies it was built in France around 1800. See Grissino-Mayer, Henri D., Deweese, Georgina G., Williams, Justin A .: Tree Ring Dating of the Karr-Koussevitzky Double Bass: A Case in Dendromusicology . In: Tree-Ring Society (Ed.): Tree-Ring Research . 61, No. 2, 2005, pp. 77-86. doi : 10.3959 / 1536-1098-61.2.77 . Retrieved April 30, 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Karr, Gary
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Karr, Gary Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian double bass player of American origin
DATE OF BIRTH November 20, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Los Angeles , California