Nicholas Walker:
String Bass, Viola Da Gamba

"Nicholas Walker is a sensational performer with youthful disregard for convention and technical limitations. He is a virtuoso double bassist, prize winning composer and multi-instrumentalist who is equally at home playing jazz in the clubs of New York or on stage performing a solo classical recital." Bass Works, Australia ( www.bassworks.com.au )

"Nicholas Walker plays using the whole bass. A bright light, his future is assured!" Milt Hinton

Nicholas Walker has played with a diverse and impressive array of musicians such as Illinois Jacquet, Clark Terry, Hank Jones, Frank Wess, Christoph Eschenbach, Michael Tilson Thomas, Blossom Dearie, Steve Ross, Abbey Lincoln, John Hendricks, José Fajardo, Alfredo Valdez Jr., and Paquito Itechavarria.

He is an accomplished musician who brings a broad range of training and experience to the string bass and the viola da gamba: classical and jazz, modern and baroque, solo recitals and chamber ensembles, popular music and bluegrass. Walker brings a lyrical sensibility entirely fresh and new into the music he plays, whether with Stolen Shack, or in a jazz or classical context.

Currently a DMA candidate in Early Music at Stony Brook University, Walker studied with Paul Ellison at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University where he received a BMA in 1994. As a Fulbright Scholar (1994-95) he trained with the pioneering maestro of the string bass, François Rabbath at the Nadia Boulanger Conservatoire in Paris. His research focused on pedagogical components of Rabbath's "Nouvelle Technique de la Contrabasse", and adapting Rabbath's technique and repertoire for the American Jazz and Latin music traditions.

An inventive composer as well, Walker features the string bass in chamber music and improvisational contexts. In 1998 the International Society of Bassists awarded him Grand Prize for his composition, EADG for Solo Bass . Recent commissions include Little Newt for the Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival, a sextet, Magnus Caligus for Ardesco, and Pop Song for String Bass and String Orchestra for the American String Teachers Association , which Walker premiered with the University of South Carolina Orchestra in the fall of 2003.

As a teacher, Walker demonstrates the art of playing the broadest sense: he shows the full capacity of his instruments, and guides students to new levels in the traditional repertoire as well as in the art of improvisation and creative collaboration. Walker has been on the faculty at the Autumn Bass Workshop in Adelaide, Australia; the Domain Forget Music Festival, Quebec; at the Rabbath Institute, Washington, D.C.; and he has lectured for both the International Society of Bassists, and for the American String Teachers Association/National String Orchestra Association.

Presently Walker is on the faculty of the Stony Brook pre-college program, and he freelances and teaches in and around New York. He enjoys an active lifestyle performing solo recitals, 'performance practice' concerts with the Stony Baroque Players, and a rewarding collaboration with Ardesco, and The Transfiguration Ensemble, a chamber music collective devoted to exposing recondite musical treasures of another age.

Visit www.nicholaswalkermusic.com for more information.