Interview and Performance with Rick Stotijn

We sit down with the amazing Rick Stotijn, double bassist soloist, teacher, chamber musician, and orchestral bassist. Rick has an impressive and varied career of teaching and recording with various ensembles and as a soloist. He is Professor Double Bass at the Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf, co-founding member of the Stockholm Syndrome Ensemble, and chamber music meets rock music group, ORBI.

In this interview, we talk about Rick's approach and experiences playing and teaching the double bass, including the essential rep he teaches his students, his 5-step program, audition tips, what makes a great principal bassist, his impressive instrument collection, his exciting upcoming projects, and more!

There are also three performances at the end of the video which you don’t want to miss - a stunning performance of Carin Malmlöf-Forssling's haunting composition, In Memoriam for Solo Double Bass. This is followed by two performances from Rick's upcoming release, Doppio Espressivo of Vivaldi's Vedro con mio diletto and Bottesini's Gran Duetto. For full details of the release please visit Rick's website by the link below.

TIMECODES:

00:00 Introduction
02:57 First memories of the double bass
06:37 Teachers
08:36 German bow vs French bow
11:55 Teaching in Dusseldorf
15:00 The 10 commandments of bass
18:58 New rep for double bass
24:16 What makes a good principal double bass player?
25:54 Rick’s double basses
29:50 Strings
30:53 Bow and rosin
31:46 Upcoming projects
Performances
33:43 C. Malmlöf-Forssling - In Memoriam
35:41 A. Vivaldi - Vedro con mio diletto
40:45 G. Bottesini - Gran Duetto

Discussion LINKS:

Božo Paradžik - website - DDB Interview
Joel Quarrington - website
Olivier Thiery - website
ISB Centre Stage - website
Sergio Scaramelli bass maker - website
Milan Oubrecht bow maker - website