impuls . 11th International Ensemble and Composers Academy for Contemporary Music
Graz, February 10th - 22nd, 2019
check tutors on left side and scroll down for information
- Photo: Desiati
Dario Calderone, double bass
“The virtuoso is someone who sees his instrument as medium to research, and who is able to contribute to the musical thinking without the fake humility of those who say that they only serve the music.” (Luciano Berio)
The solo and chamber literature for double bass has considerably changed over the last 40 years. The bass is not any longer "the lazy component of the string family", with lots of limitations, but nowadays especially appreciated for its idiomatic characteristics and for the new sounds, that only this instrument can produce. Thanks to this new perspective, a number of important figures have composed new pieces which allow the double bass to express itself on the same level as other instruments. Whilest 50 years ago the musical instruction was just aimed to "create" a double bass player who was able to win an audition and play in an orchestra, nowadays the most important thing is, in my opinion, to create a strong individuality, being able to develop his/her own way in order to contribute actively to the general "liquid" musical scene. The double bass course will focus on solo repertoire from 1980 until now, chamber/ensemble repertoire, fear control, personal artistic development and collaborations with the composers involved in the course.
Dario Calderone studied double bass with Massimo Giorgi, Franco Petracchi and has been one of the few pupils of Stefano Scodanibbio. He is an advocate for new music for nearly 20 years now, having performed hundreds of new compositions for solo double bass, chamber music and ensemble pieces. His most interesting solo projects involve "A Voyage that never ends" by Stefano Scodanibbio, a collaboration with Giorgio Netti and a specific research in micro-amplification for the live realization of his own compositions for double bass. He is member of MAZE, an ensemble for exploratory music based in Amsterdam, dealing with radical sound experiments, media, interactive scores and conceptual composition. He has recorded a number of CDs, but the one he himself likes most is the one where he puts together all the music by James Tenney that one could play on a bass: James Tenney: Bass Works, Hat Hut Records.