TEACHING
Crescendo Summer Institute Bass section 2018
David is a visiting professor of double bass at Southampton University and the London College of Music. He has given masterclasses at Trinity Laban Conservatoire, London and the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin. He teaches privately and online. He also teaches at Marlborough College. He is the bass tutor at the annual Crescendo Summer Institute in Hungary.
RESOURCES
I have been very privileged to have studied with a number of fine players and teachers during my time as a student. One of these was Edwin Barker, principal bass with the Boston Symphony. When I went to see Ed, I had been unhappy with aspects of my bowing technique and at my first lesson he presented an approach that for me was quite novel. Put simply this approach involved gripping the bow firmly in certain conditions and it became fundamental to my approach to playing the double bass in orchestra. Some years later when I asked Ed about the provenance of this style, he told me it came from his teacher Henry Portnoi, who was his predecessor as principal at the Boston Symphony.
Henry Portnoi was a member of the Boston Symphony for thirty four years, including nine years as principal. He graduated from the Curtis Institute in 1940 having studied with Anton Torello, a legendary teacher in his own right who taught many fine American players including Oscar Zimmerman. Torello, a Catalan bassist emigrated to the USA in 1909 and went on to become the principal bass of the Philadelphia orchestra under Stokowski. He was the first bass teacher on the Curtis Institute and he is credited with introducing the French bow hold to America. Henry Portnoi published his ‘Creative Bass Technique’ in 1978. Click the button below to view.