Upright Bass with Constantin P.

A noted bass player in my native Romania and Western Europe, I came to the United States in 1989. I was a winner in the 1990 International Bassists Society Solo Competition in New York where the renowned bassist Gary Karr heard me perform, and he made this statement about me. ‘Without hesitation I can say that he is one of the great talents of today.” Karr also described my great technical facility as well as my innate musicality with “He plays with a lot of soul and communicates musical ideas easily.” My new career in America began to flourish when I starting studying at Julliard with Eugene Levinson and when I auditioned for the New York Philharmonic and became a regular performing substitute. A resident of Connecticut, I earlier served as assistant principal of the New Haven Symphony, principal bass of the Norwalk Symphony, assistant principal of the Bridgeport Symphony and have played with the San Francisco Symphony, the New Jersey Symphony, the Long Island Philharmonic and other orchestras. I have also appeared as soloist with the Greenwich Symphony Orchestra, the Connecticut Concerto Consortium, the Black Sea Philharmonic and other Connecticut and overseas orchestras. I was principal bass for the Greenwich Symphony for over twenty years. My family stems from a family of artisans in the Romanian town of Focsani. As part of my studies at the Bucharest Conservatory, I was trained as a luthier – a maker of stringed instruments. Seeing the need for an artist-craftsman with a special knowledge of the double bass, I opened an atelier in Westport and one in Greenwich(Conn.) in which now services and rebuilds distinguished instruments for professionals and students. Deeply interested in the education of young musicians, I am a state-certified teacher in Connecticut and in the past have served on the board of the Connecticut Division of the American String Teachers Association. I have organized a yearly double bass recital for my students, the first of its kind in the area, also performing in duo recitals as the Bottesini Bass Duo, the first in America to explore the virtuoso repertoire for two basses.