Viennese Bass Lecture/Demo - Bret Simner

The Williams College Department of Music presents world-class classical bass player, Bret Simner with a lecture and demonstration on the Viennese Violine on Wednesday, March 9 at 4:15 p.m. in Bernhard Music Center Room 30. This free event is open to the public.

In the early classical period approximately twenty-six concertos were written for the Viennese bass by the most important composers in all of Europe. The repertoire of his five-stringed fretted bass includes numerous chamber works, a concert aria by W. A. Mozart, and various orchestral solos by Josef Haydn. The majority of this music was written in the short period from 1764 -1791. What exactly was this instrument? Where did it come from and why was its renaissance so brief?

With “An Introduction to the Viennese Violone,” Bret Simner will walk through the history of the Viennese Violone looking at and explaining the instrument’s tuning, construction, repertoire, virtuosi, and eventual “extinction.” The talk will include concerto movements from Vanhal and Pichl, as well as various examples performed on Simner’s Willer Violone from 1770 in Viennese setup.

Born in Queens, New York, Bret Simner received his Bachelor and Master degrees from the Juilliard School, his Doctorate from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and Fortbildingsstudium at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (Basel, Switzerland).  His additional study includes Bennington College, the Eastman School of Music, Aspen Music Festival, Round Top Music Festival, Internationale Händel-Akademie Karlsruhe, Jeune Orchestre Atlantique, l’Académie Baroque Européenne d’Ambronay, and l’Académie Mozart Européenne.

Simner’s principal teachers have been Eugene Levinson (Principal Bassist, New York Philharmonic), Joseph Carver (L’Orchestre des Champs-Élysées), David Sinclair (L’Ensemble Baroque de Limoges), François Rabbath, James VanDemark and Jeffrey Levine.

As an early music specialist, he currently serves as principal bassist of Barockorchester Capricco Basel. In addition, he has appeared as a guest lecture and soloist on the Viennese bass and historic performance practice at the University of Hartford, the Musik Akademie der Stadt Basel, BASS 2010 in Berlin, and the International Society of Bassist Conventions in 2007 and 2009. In October 2009, he played a recital at the Musikinstrumenten-Museum Berlin where he performed on the Museum’s 1720 Stadlmann Viennese bass, being the second person in the history of the museum invited to do so.

Simner’s additional ensemble work includes concerts in the U.S. and throughout Europe on modern and historic instruments with Kammerorchester Basel, Cantus Firmus Barockorchester, Basler Madrigalisten, Ensemble Turicum, the Opéra Théâtre de Besançon, La Chambre Philharmonique, Ensemble Baroque du Grand Théâtre de Genève, Basel Festival Orchestra, Camerata Schweiz, and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

As a teacher, Simner has served on the faculty of the Juilliard School, the Rivertowns Arts Council, Bronxville Schools, the Hartwick College Summer Music Festival, and the New York Summer Music Festival. His additional academic pursuits include a 2001 collaboration with Eugene Levinson in the publication of The School of Agility, as well as the preparation of an urtext edition of Wenzel Pichl’s Concerto No. 1 with Editions Violone scheduled to be released in spring 2011.

Bret lives in Basel, Switzerland with his wife Emily Yaffe and son Zachary.