Bassist, Performer
Bassist Timothy Cobb joined the New York Philharmonic as Principal Bass in May 2014, after serving as principal bass of The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and principal bass of the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra since 1989.
He has appeared at numerous chamber music festivals worldwide, including the Marlboro Music festival, through which he has toured with the Musicians from Marlboro series. A faculty member of the Sarasota Music Festival, he is helping to launch a new bass program for the Killington Music Festival in Killington, Vermont. Mr. Cobb also serves as principal bass for Valery Gergiev’s World Orchestra for Peace, an invited group of musicians from around the world who donate their time biannually and perform to promote international harmony. Mr. Cobb has been designated a UNESCO Artist for Peace from his affiliation with the World Orchestra.
He has an ongoing collaboration with actor Stephen Lang, for whom he recorded a solo bass sound track for Mr. Lang’s animated short film The Wheatfield, which depicts a human drama from the Battle of Gettysburg. The two were invited to Gettysburg in July 2013 on the 150th anniversary of the battle to perform in the Salute to the States event held there, and they will continue to collaborate for future events.
Mr. Cobb serves as bass department chair for The Juilliard School as well as on the faculties of the Manhattan School of Music, Purchase College, and Rutgers University. He is also a distinguished visiting artist for Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida.
A native of Albany, New York, Timothy Cobb graduated from The Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Roger Scott. While at Curtis, Mr. Cobb was a substitute with The Philadelphia Orchestra and in his senior year became a member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Georg Solti. Mr. Cobb can be heard on all Metropolitan Opera recordings released after 1986, as well as on a recording of Giovanni Bottesini’s duo bass music with bassist Thomas Martin on the Naxos label.
Bassist, Performer
Hailed as a “…virtuoso…” by Donal Henahan of The New York Times, “…an extraordinary musician…” by The Washington Post and “…stupefying…” by L’Est Vaudois (Switzerland), Richard Fredrickson made his Carnegie Recital Hall debut at the age of 24 after winning the Concert Artists Guild award. This marked the first time the award had ever been presented to a double bassist.
Mr. Fredrickson has been a guest artist with such orchestras as the Seattle, Omaha and Baton Rouge Symphonies, the Slovak Radio Orchestra, the New York Chamber Symphony and the Washington Chamber Symphony. He has toured twice in Italy as soloist with the Orchestra of the North Carolina School of the Arts, where he also taught in the summer program. He has toured in Europe and appeared several times at the Kennedy Center, to great critical acclaim, with the Handel Festival Orchestra (now known as the Washington Chamber Symphony). He has also toured in the United States with Mitch Miller and his orchestra performing the Paganini Moses Fantasy.
In recital, he has been heard in such venues and cities as the 92nd Street Y in New York, both the National Gallery of Art and the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC; Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Seattle, Washington; and in Italy. For several seasons he was a member of Newman and Friends with harpsichordist/organist Anthony Newman at Alice Tully Hall and with whom he also recorded the Bach Brandenburg Concerti. His festival engagements include the New Hampshire White Mountain Festival, Aspen, the Seattle Chamber Music Festival and the Fredericksburg Festival of the Arts.
Chamber music has always been a special passion for Mr. Fredrickson. He has appeared with such groups and artists as the Philadelphia String Quartet, “For the Love of Music”, the Copenhagen String Trio, the Muir String Quartet, the Lyric Piano Quartet, Bargemusic, Yo-Yo Ma, Carol Wincenc, Heidi Lehwalder, Christopher O’Riley, Anton Nel, Anne-Marie McDermott and Michelle Levin.
Ever seeking to expand the solo double bass repertoire, he has been the inspiration for such compositions as a Sonata and a Suite by Kenneth Benshoof, sonatas by Paul Tufts and Jan Bach and a Concerto by Alvin Brehm. Recently, he commissioned both John Carbon and William Thomas McKinley to write works for him. With the Slovak Radio Orchestra, Kirk Trevor conducting, Fredrickson recorded the Carbon Endangered Species, McKinley Passacaglia and the Vittorio Giannini Psalm 130. The CD was released in 2005 on the MMC (Master Musicians Collective) label. In May, 2005 Fredrickson also performed and recorded a new work written for him by McKinley for clarinet, double bass and orchestra, as well as the Bottesini Duetto with clarinetist Richard Stolzman and the Slovak Radio Orchestra. The Bottesini Duetto was released in October 2009 on the Navona Records label.
