Stephen Tramontozzi Walkabout Artist bios Stephen Tramontozzi is the San Francisco Symphony’s Assistant Principal Bass. A native of Arlington, Massachusetts, he studied at the Eastman School of Music, New England Conservatory, and the San Francisco Conservatory, and joined the San Francisco Symphony in 1980. Mr. Tramontozzi has been on the faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory since 1985. He has led master classes across the United States, and he has coached members of the SFS Youth Orchestra bass section since its inception. He also formerly served on the faculties of Stanford University, the University of California, Berkeley, and UC Santa Cruz. His publications include The Solo Cello Suites of J.S. Bach for Double Bass Nos. 2, 3, and 4. He has recorded the Books of Madrigals by George Crumb under his supervision; the keyboard concerti of J.S. Bach with Awadagin Pratt and the St. Lawrence Quartet; and a CD of chamber music by Lou Harrison. Keisuke Nakagoshi earned his Bachelors degree in Composition and Masters degree in Chamber Music from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he studied composition with David Conte and piano with Paul Hersh. In 2009, Keisuke and Swiss pianist Eva-Maria Zimmermann formed ZOFO, a piano duet team commissioning and performing music for piano four hands. Mr. Nakagoshi is currently Pianist-in-Residence at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and he is Resident Pianist at Opera Parallèle. Track 1 - Geoffrey Keezer - Renovations From the composer: “Renovations is a new work composed for San Diego Symphony bassist Susan Wulff, and is dedicated to her father John Wulff. The title has multiple layers of meaning: When I was writing the piece at a friend’s house in the Hollywood hills, workmen were redoing the garden outside, so as I sat at the piano by big sliding glass doors, I could watch the general chaos unfold around me, the noisy comings and goings of wheelbarrows full of landscaping materials. I can only imagine what the gardeners must have thought of some guy banging away at a piano a few feet from them for 8 hours a day! “Renovations” as well refers to Susan’s father, who in addition to being a full-time math professor, was a licensed contractor and taught his daughters his trade. While not technically a jazz piece (no improvisation is required of the performers), Renovations contains elements of contemporary jazz harmony and rhythm, with nods to the musical styles of Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, Donald Brown and Jaco Pastorius.” This is the first recording of this piece. Track 2 - Arthur Honegger - Prélude pour la sous-basse et piano This piece is dated by the composer February 1932. The sous-basse was one of the instruments invented by the maker Léo Sir in around 1920 and its range lies between that of the cello and the double bass. Track 3 - Joseph Jongen - Prélude, Habanera, et Allegro, op. 106 Jongen composed this piece in 1938 while he was director of the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. The rich romantic aesthetic expressed throughout is similar to that found in the music of Fauré but is superbly colored showing the influences of Debussy and Ravel. Track 4 - Dmitri Shostakovich - Moderato Shostakovich wrote only a handful of works for violoncello. This piece was discovered in a state archive posthumously, and was written in the 1930s. Stephen Tramontozzi transcribed it for double bass, and this is the first recording of this piece on double bass. Track 5-7 - David Conte - Sonata for Double Bass and Piano This Sonata was commissioned by Stephen Tramontozzi and was premiered at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 2017. This is the first recording of this piece. Notes from the composer: “The work is cast in three contrasting movements. The first movement, marked Allegretto, features a broadly sung, energetic first theme, followed by a more lyrical, cantabile second theme. The work unfolds according to the traditional sonata-allegro design, and ends with a witty recollection of the first theme. The second movement, marked Adagio, opens with an expressive and melancholy theme in the piano. The theme is then taken up by the Double Bass, and is subtly developed and expanded, reaching several climaxes, before ending with a mournful passage alternating the two instruments over a pulsating pedal. The third movement is marked Allegro giocoso and features two rhythmic and cheerful themes, followed by a third more lyrical theme. In the recapitulation all three themes are restated with some modest development, leading to a brisk coda.” Track 8 - Stephen Tramontozzi - Homage to Varèse I wrote Homage to Varèse after a period of listening to and studying the music of French avant-garde composer Edgard Varèse. I was enormously impressed by his treatment and emphasis of timbre and rhythm, especially in his larger works. However I wanted to create a piece for the solo double bass as a kind of inspired counterpoint to Varèse’s piece for solo flute, Density 21.5.