The Peabody Bass Department welcomes you to our home on the web! Please explore and learn more about who we are and what we do. We invite you to contact us if you have any questions or would like to learn more.
Ira Gold made his Carnegie Hall solo debut in 2011, performing the Vanhal Bass Concerto with the Catholic University of America Symphony Orchestra. Prior to joining the National Symphony in 2005, Gold performed with several American orchestras, as section bass with the Minnesota Orchestra and as guest principal bassist with the San Francisco Symphony and Detroit Symphony.
Nina DeCesare joined the bass section of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in September 2020 after playing five years with the Oregon Symphony bass section. She has also performed with The Cleveland Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony, the Seattle Symphony, the Houston Symphony, the Kansas City Symphony, the Sun Valley Music Festival, the Knights Orchestra, the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, and the Oregon Bach Festival.
The curriculum that every Peabody bass student undertakes has three basic elements: private instruction with their main teacher, orchestral repertoire classes, and performance classes. In addition, students participate in events with guest lecturers and artists. You can learn more about these elements by clicking on the text or by using the navigation menu on the left.
Like the conservatory as a whole, the bass department at Peabody works to avoid an atmosphere of competition and negative commentary among our students. We want every bass player here to be learning from each other and working hard to achieve their own highest standard of excellence.
The ultimate goal of most Peabody bass students is a career in music, and for most bassists that means playing in symphony orchestras. While we want every Peabody bass student to graduate with the ability to perform at a high technical and musical level in any situation, we place an emphasis on acquiring the practical skills and knowledge that it takes to do well in orchestral playing and orchestral auditions.
All of the classes in our department are taught on a rotating basis by the entire faculty. Students are exposed to the ideas and approach of all of our teachers. We don’t always teach everything in exactly the same way, but we all want to help all of the students to find what works best for them and contributes to their own musical growth.