Gary (Michael) Karr. Bassist, teacher, writer, born Los Angeles 20 Nov 1941, naturalized Canadian 1997; honorary D MUS (Victoria) 2005. Karr came from a family of seven generations of bass players, and despite their general lack of encouragement in pursuing the profession, he became the world's first double bassist to have a full-time solo performing career on the instrument. He began his studies with the Russian bassist Uda Demenstein, and subsequently studied with Herman Reinshagen (University of Southern California), Warren Benfield (Northwestern University), and Stuart Sankey (The Juilliard School). Other teachers and mentors included cellists Gabor Rejto, Zara Nelsova, and Leonard Rose, pianist Leonard Shure, conductor Alfredo Antonini, and mezzo-soprano Jennie Tourel. Karr adopted a very vocal approach to the bass. As a student at The Juilliard School he subbed in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and had a first-hand opportunity to observe world-class singers. Karr began his solo career with the Chicago Little Symphony under Thor Johnson in 1961, and appeared with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts at Carnegie Hall in 1962. Karr enjoyed a 40-year virtuoso career (1961-2001), appearing as a soloist with major orchestras all over the world including the Chicago Symphony, the London Philharmonic (England), the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, the Hong Kong Philharmonic and the Jerusalem Symphony (Israel). He has been featured in videos on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), CBS, and the CBC in a 12-week TV series called Gary Karr and His Friends (1973). Karr has had a long-time collaboration with pianist-organist-harpsichordist Harmon Lewis. The Karr-Lewis Duo has performed internationally in recitals and at music festivals such as the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad (Switzerland), the Edinburgh Festival, the Bergen Festival (Norway) and the Victoria International Festival in British Columbia. Karr received a prized Bronze Medal from the Rosa Ponselle Foundation (c 1992), recognizing him as an outstanding lyrical musician. He was awarded the Artist-Teacher of the Year Award from the American String Teachers Association (ASTA) in 1997. In 1967, he founded the International Society of Double Bassists (ISB), and this organization awarded him its Distinguished Achievement Award (1995), and Distinguished Teacher Award (2001). In 2001 Karr played his farewell concert at the ISB Convention in Indianapolis. Not long after his New York debut recital (1962), Karr was given a treasured 1611 Amati double bass by Olga Koussevitsky, which had belonged to her late husband Serge (bass virtuoso and conductor 1874-1951). Karr subsequently (1983) established the non-profit Karr Doublebass Foundation to loan instruments to deserving young musicians selected by competition. In 1995, Karr commissioned a new bass from the Victoria luthier James Ham, an instrument made entirely of wood from BC. In 2004, Karr gifted the Amati, which on investigation turned out to be of French origin (c. 1800) and since has been known as the Karr-Koussevitsky bass, to the ISB. An alumnus of The Juilliard School, Gary soon accepted a teaching position at North Carolina School of the Arts headed by Vittorio Giannini. He has since held US faculty appointments at The Juilliard School, Yale University, Indiana University, the New England Conservatory of Music, and the University of Wisconsin. In the 1970s he served on the Canada Council's Artist Advisory Panel for three years, while teaching at Dalhousie University (1972-1977) and at public schools in Halifax. From 1972 to 1994, Karr was on faculty at the Johannesen International School of the Arts, and in 1996 he started KarrKamp, an intensive month-long summer course for bassists held at the University of Victoria which has attracted bass players of all ages and levels from throughout the world. Karr has produced numerous educational method books and videos on the technical aspects of playing the bass, and has written articles for musical journals. Composers who have written works for Karr include Vittorio Giannini, and Gunther Schuller (Concerto for Double Bass and Orchestra, 1968) and he has commissioned works by American composers Lalo Shifrin and John Downey, and Canadians Alexander Brott and Dennis Farrell (Suite Catholique, 1973), among others. Although mainly a classical performer, Karr has played all sorts of music on the bass, including many of his own arrangements and transcriptions. He has played with most great jazz bassists, and appeared with Oscar Peterson and his bassist, Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen, on a BBC TV special. In 2000, at an event for Music of Remembrance (MOR, a Seattle-based chamber music organization dedicated to preserving the musical legacy of Holocaust musicians), Karr performed the world premiere of Lori Laitman's Holocaust 1944 for baritone and double bass written especially for him. Karr joined the MOR Advisory Board in 2000. Karr officially retired to Victoria, BC in 2001, where he has continued to teach at the Victoria Summer Music Festival, write for musical journals, perform chamber music, and fundraise for musical events. He has another unusual bass, from the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan -- one made of aluminum that he has used as a decoration in his rose garden in Victoria. --  From the Canadian Encyclopedia (text only - photo added for this website presentation)  --  Note: Names which are links on this webpage refer to my Interviews elsewhere on my website.  BD

Gary Karr was back in Chicago in December of 1993 for the annual Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic, and we arranged to meet for a conversation.  As I was setting up the recording equipment, we commented about the microphone and its placement on the table where we sat . . . . .


Gary Karr:  You have a stronger voice than I do, and you’re further away.

Bruce Duffie:    [Laughs and speaks with confidence]  Projection!

GK:    Projection, yes.  I can project in halls.

BD:    Well, let’s just start right there.  Is it particularly difficult to make the bass project, to get the deep sound into all the corners of a hall?

GK:    Actually not.  It probably projects better than a cello.  Maybe the sound waves are longer, and of course it’s a bigger instrument.  I demonstrated this only really once, where I was able to do something that no one expected, and that was in Japan.  I played the Dvořák Cello Concerto, which has a big orchestration to it, and the bass in that piece projected actually better than a cello.  The comment that I heard more than any other comment was that the instrument projected so well.

BD:    Was that because the pitch was more in the mid-range of the bass, as opposed to the lower range of the cello?

GK:    Maybe that’s it.  It could be, because when the cello goes low it’s not heard as well as we are heard in that same register.  That could be one of the things, because a lot of the lyrical tunes in the

The Karr-Kousevitzky bass, or Amati bass, is a famous double bass previously belonging to Serge Koussevitzky and Gary Karr. It is now [2016] generally referred to as the Karr-Koussevitzky rather than the Amati. Until recently, the bass had been attributed to the Amati brothers, but now it is generally believed to have its origins in France. It is renowned for its tonal quality in solo music, but is considered to be difficult to play. The origins of the bass have long been subject to speculation. Although nothing is known of the instrument before 1901, Koussevitzky reported having acquired it from a French dealer. The bass was originally thought to have been made in 1611 by Antonio and Girolamo Amati. However, recent studies suggest a French origin and a fabrication date closer to 1800. The studies consider style of construction and feature proportions to identify a region and date. Growth ring analysis further confirmed the more recent date.

GK:    That the Amati from 1611.  In actual fact, the string length of that bass is 100 percent normal.  It’s not small at all, and the length of the instrument is also very normal.

BD:    Normal for full-size?

GK:    No, for a three-quarter-size bass.  If you were to put that bass alongside most of the instruments in an orchestra, you would be amazed at how similar in size it is.  But the shape of the instrument is very gracefully made.

BD:    If a full-size bass is so unplayable, why is it made?

GK:    That’s a really good question, as a matter of fact.  Basses come in all sizes, and also in more shapes than you can imagine.  To me it’s something very frustrating, in fact almost humiliating, because the violin, that puny instrument, and the cello have been more or less standardized.  Most of those instruments are alike, and if a soloist comes along and plays with the orchestra and breaks a string, the traditional thing is that they grab someone else’s instrument and continue playing the concerto.  I can’t do that, for two reasons.  First of all, none of the basses in the bass section are going to be anything like my Amati.  And secondly, I even use a different tuning, which I’ll explain later.  But to get back to the shape of the instrument, a lot of bass players are commissioning makers to build instruments that are so unplayable, I can’t understand it.  The top part of the instrument we call the shoulders, and if you’re playing solos on a bass like that with high shoulders, it means that you have to practically get on your tip toes to reach around to the highest positions.  Or, you must play the bass sitting down, leaning a lot of it on your shoulder.  As ridiculous and as painful as it is, to me it’s utterly amazing that anybody would ever commission a bass to be built like that.

BD:    Going back to the ancient history of the instrument, the violins and the violas and the cellos are part of the violino family, and the bass, as I understand it, is part of the viol family, so it’s a little different formulation.

GK:    Yes, we’re closer to the viola.  In fact, my Amati is very close to a viola because it’s got a flat back that looks very much like the old viols.  In fact, originally it only had three strings.  It has four strings now. 

BD:    Do you ever play a five string bass?

GK:    I have.

BD:    Is there any advantage to that, except just adding range?

GK:    I think a five string bass is a ridiculous concoction.  It’s one of the craziest things that ever happened to our instrument.  First of all, it’s bad enough to add a fourth string, because the three string bass sounds absolutely fabulous.  It has an open, wonderful, rich sound.

BD:    Is the fourth string added top or bottom?

GK:    The fourth string was added bottom.

BD:    Because that’s your E string on the bottom.

GK:    Right, and that E string put more pressure on the top and canceled a lot of the vibrations that sounded so beautiful without that string.  To add yet another string smothers what the bass can do even more, so the output of the instrument is extremely limited. 

Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume (7 October 1798 – 19 March 1875) was a French luthier and winner of many awards. He made over 3,000 instruments and was a businessman and an inventor.  He was born in Mirecourt, where his father and grandfather were luthiers. Vuillaume moved to Paris in 1818 to work for François Chanot. In 1821, he joined the workshop of Simon Lété, François-Louis Pique's son-in-law, at Rue Pavée St. Sauveur. He became his partner, and in 1825 settled in the Rue Croix des Petits-Champs under the name of "Lété et Vuillaume". His first labels are dated 1823. In 1827, at the height of the Neo-Gothic period, he started to make imitations of old instruments, some copies were undetectable. In 1827, he won a silver medal at the Paris Universal Exhibition, and in 1828, he started his own business at 46 Rue Croix des Petits-Champs. His workshop became the most important in Paris, and within twenty years it led Europe. A major factor in his success was his 1855 purchase of 144 instruments made by the Italian masters for 80,000 francs, from the heirs of Luigi Tarisio, an Italian tradesman. These included the Messiah Stradivarius and 24 other Stradivari. In 1858, in order to avoid Paris customs duty on wood imports, he moved to Rue Pierre Demours near the Ternes, outside Paris. He was at the height of success, having won various gold medals in the competitions of the Paris Universal Exhibitions in 1839, 1844, and 1855, the Council Medal in London in 1851, and in that same year, the Legion of Honour. A maker of more than 3,000 instruments—almost all of which are numbered—and a fine tradesman, Vuillaume was also a gifted inventor, as his research in collaboration with the acoustics expert Savart demonstrates. As an innovator, he developed many new instruments and mechanisms, most notably a large viola which he called a "contralto", and the three-string Octobass (1849–51), a huge triple bass standing 3.48 metres high. He also created the hollow steel bow (particularly appreciated by Charles de Bériot, among others), and the 'self-rehairing' bow. For the latter, the hair purchased in prepared hanks could be inserted by the player in the time it takes to change a string, and was tightened or loosened by a simple mechanism inside the frog. The frog itself was fixed to the stick, and the balance of the bow thus remained constant when the hair stretched with use. He also designed a round-edged frog mounted to the butt by means of a recessed track, which he encouraged his bowmakers to use. Other details of craft, however, make it possible to identify the actual maker of many Vuillaume bows. The bows are stamped, often rather faintly, either "vuillaume à paris" or "j.b. vuillaume". Other innovations include the insertion of Stanhopes in the eye of the frogs of his bows, a kind of mute (the pédale sourdine) and several machines, including one for manufacturing gut strings of perfectly equal thickness. Vuillaume was an innovative violin maker and restorer, and a tradesman who traveled all of Europe in search of instruments. Due to this fact, most instruments by the great Italian violin makers passed through his workshop. Vuillaume then made accurate measurements of their dimensions and made copies of them. He drew his inspiration from two violin makers and their instruments: Antonio Stradivari and his "Le Messie" (Messiah), and Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù and his "Il Cannone" which belonged to Niccolò Paganini. Others such as Maggini, Da Salò and Nicola Amati were also imitated, but to a lesser extent.

BD:    Do you feel a particular closeness to Koussevitzky when playing his instrument?

GK:    Absolutely.  That seems like a leading question, because the reason I got the instrument was due to Mrs. Koussevitzky.  The instrument itself is probably one of the most famous basses in existence.

BD:    Is it famous because Amati made it, or is it famous because Koussevitzky played it?

GK:    I think both.  At the time that Koussevitzky purchased this instrument in 1903, it already had a great reputation as being one of the finest basses in existence.  The day after my debut concert in New York, Mrs. Koussevitzky called me on the telephone, and I thought it was a friend of mine playing a practical joke.  She had a very thick Russian accent and was very soft spoken.  She said, “Hello, this is Mrs. Koussevitzky calling,”  and I said, “Yeah, baby, I’ll bet.”  [Both laugh]  So she invited me to her apartment, and the bass was there.  She said, “The reason I invited you here is after having heard you play last night, I thought you’re the one to carry on the legacy of my husband, and the only way you can do it is with his bass.  So I’d like you to have it as a gift.”  Later on I discovered more about the story because she was taken to my debut concert by Jennie Tourel, who was my mentor in New York.  Jenny told me later that the reason why Olga Koussevitzky wanted me to have that bass is because she saw the ghost of Koussevitzky hovering over me as I played.  So in answer to your question, since then I found out a lot about this, and there are a number of other coincidences, weird things that have happened during my life that connect me to Koussevitzky.

BD:    Do these things come together more when you play his concerto or his repertoire, rather than new repertoire?

GK:    Yes, definitely.  It sounds weird to say it, but when I’m playing his concerto there are times I really feel the old man’s hovering over me.

BD:    Are there times when you’re playing a new piece and you don’t think it’s going well, you think the old man is saying, “Don’t play that piece?”

GK:    That thought has entered my mind a number of times, because Koussevitzky, more than any conductor probably in history, commissioned more new works, and he had a real love of contemporary music.  He also had extraordinarily good taste in contemporary music.  If you look at the list of the things he commissioned himself, it’s some of the most important orchestral works of this century.

BD:    So is his spirit guiding you completely, or is he letting you be your own man?

GK:    I don’t know.  That’s a good question.  I don’t know how much of what I’ve done has been prodded on by his influence, or how much is actually in me.  I couldn’t answer that question.  First of all I began studying the bass the day he died.  I didn’t find that out till later, but Olga Koussevitzky had known that fact.  A lot of virtuoso classical musicians have had this type of feeling when they’re playing as a young child, they feel like an old person.  I had that, too.  When I was eleven years old playing the bass, I didn’t feel that I was playing the instrument as a young person.  I actually felt like there was an old person in me playing through me as a young child.

BD:    Old in terms of wisdom, not old in terms of being tired?

GK:    I don’t know if it was wisdom.  It was old in terms of comprehension, of the history.  It was like I was making the kind of statements that one would expect to hear from an older person, not a younger person.  When I listen to tapes of my youth, I’m amazed even today that the kinds of feelings I was projecting are not feelings you expect to hear from young people.  It’s the same with Midori, not that I’m in her class, but there are a lot of these artists who start very young.  One of the things that is intriguing about these people is that they play so much older than they are. 

BD:    That’s the music speaking into their soul and coming out through the instrument.

GK:    Yes.

that I’m piercing their hearts, or really reaching them in a deep way.  That’s me.  I’m a lyrical player, so when I meet composers, I want them to hear the bass as a voice and not so much as an instrument.  I beg them to write for me lyrically.

BD:    Do they?

GK:    John Downey, as an example, did this so beautifully in his concerto.  There’s so many wonderful delightful lyrical passages.  Wilfred Josephs, who wrote a concerto which will be out in CD hopefully the early part of next year, wrote an enormously lyrical concerto.  I love that piece almost more than anything I play.  That and the Downey are my two favorites.

BD:    Does this alter who you go to with the commissions?  Do you purposely go to someone who can write lyrically?

GK:    Yes.  For instance, the reason I went to Hans Werner Henze to commission his concert

BD:    I often ask opera singers if they become the character or portray the character.  You’re a bass player, so do you become part of that bass as you play the music, or does the bass become part of you as the music is coming out?

GK:    It’s so funny that you put it on those terms, because that is exactly how I think of the bass.  The bass, to me, is an opera singer.  The bass, to me, is the voice that I wish I were.  I am a frustrated singer.  Obviously, I must be because I’m a lyricist.  I love lyrical lines.  I want to sing.  In fact, when I was young I studied singing.  I studied singing with Jenny Tourel, and I got up and sang for an audience because I wanted to evoke in the audience the same kind of reaction I had hearing a singer when I was very young.  I was very emotionally moved by this, and I wanted to do that same thing and get that same kind of response.  So I sang to an audience and everybody cried

BD:    [Gently protesting]  But I didn’t ask that.  I asked about taking a good cellist and making him into a bass player.

GK:    I studied with Gabor Rejto at the University of Southern California when I was a student.  He was a cello teacher, and he had all his cellists study the double bass because he felt that the double bass helped his students play the cello better.  Looking at it that way there are advantages.  All string instruments have a lot to share in common, and rather than have a great or a good cellist come to the bass, if a really fine talent came along, it would please me enormously instead of choosing the cello, they would chose the double bass.

BD:    Are you optimistic about the whole future of music?

GK:    No, I’m not, and that’s why I’m here in Chicago, as a matter of fact.  I’m very discouraged.  More than twenty years ago I became a music teacher in the schools because I realized then that things were going to be really tough.  I was forecasting it at that time, but nobody would listen.  I came to Chicago in 1974 and tried to wake people up, and a horrible thing happened then that was just the precursor of what was going to happen.  I played a concert in the big ballroom in, I think it was the Congress Hotel, but I’m not sure.  It was a big place and was well attended.  I demonstrated how to give a program for children, and the enthusiastic response was absolutely more than anything I could have ever wanted.  There was a standing ovation and the whole bit.  I was so pleased, I made the following statement, “I travel a lot and I give concerts in a lot of cities.  If I’m anywhere near you, please contact me.  I will come in to your school and play for your children for nothing.”

BD:    What an offer!

GK:    Guess what happened?

BD:    No calls?

GK:    One.  And there were 2000 people in this event, and only one person asked about it. 

BD:    Maybe they thought you were kidding.

GK:    No.  I know exactly what happened.  All these music teachers went back to a situation where the principal isn’t supportive of music.  They have a lot of paperwork to do.  They have a lot of distractions.  They have all kinds of things that they have to do, and to devote time to arranging some event like that was beyond what they could handle.  They just couldn’t do it. 

BD:    But if you’re not charging any fee, then it’s not a line-item in the budget.

GK:    Right.  If I had charged, maybe they would have appreciated it more

© 1993 Bruce Duffie

This conversation was recorded in Chicago on December 13, 1993.  Portions were broadcast on WNIB the following year, and again in 1996.  This transcription was made in 2016, and posted on this website at that time.

To see a full list (with links) of interviews which have been transcribed and posted on this website, click here.

Award - winning broadcaster Bruce Duffie was with WNIB, Classical 97 in Chicago from 1975 until its final moment as a classical station in February of 2001.  His interviews have also appeared in various magazines and journals since 1980, and he now continues his broadcast series on WNUR-FM, as well as on Contemporary Classical Internet Radio.