Awarded 1st Prize by the Conservatories of Music in Rennes (1980) and Versailles (1982).

  Enrolls in 1983 at the Berklee College of Music, Boston; on scholarship from 1983 to 1985.

        Plays concerts at Berklee with Chick Corea, Eddie Gomez ,Tommy Campbell and others.

   From 1986 to 1989, Gildas is a member of the Gary Burton quintet, playing at prestigious festivals such as: Montreux, North Sea (Holland), Umbria (Italy), Paris Jazz Festival, etc.

From 1990 to 1991, plays in the Maynard Ferguson orchestra (tours in USA and Japan).

        Over the course of his professional career, Gildas has played with Al Cohn, Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry, Michael Brecker, Bob Moses, Dave Liebman, Peter Erskine, Pat Metheny, Joe Pass, Kenny Wheeler, Jerry Bergonzi, Diana Krall, Franco Ambrosetti, Kenny Barron, Chris Potter, Gary Thomas, Bill Carrothers, Bill Charlapp, Walt Weiskopf, and Mick Goodrick.

       After 11 years in the USA, Gildas moves to Paris in 1994.

  He has shared the stage with great musicians such as: Aldo Romano, Philip Catherine, Nguyen Le, Eric Barret, Didier Lockwood, Sara Lazarus, Nelson Veras, Daniel Humair, Paolo Fresu, Marc Ducret, Stefano DiBatista, Martial Solal, Sylvain Beuf, and Olivier Ker Ourio.

      In 1994, he participates in the Quimper Festival with Jacques Pellen, in 1996 with the group Skolvan, and in 1999 with Dan ar Bras and Denez Prijean at Les Tombées de la Nuit in Rennes.

      In 1996, 1997 and 1999, he composes and interprets the music of the play, "The Barber of Seville," for a run of 60+ performances by the Pirate theatre company.

He is co-leader of the group Celtic Tales with his brother Jean Baptiste; their 2nd album is released by the label Naive: Pas an dour (2000).

        Tours in Japan, USA, and South America with the Gipsy Kings in 2000 and 2001.

  2002, 2003 Tours and/or records with the Olivier Ker Ourio quartet, the Giovanni Mirabassi trio, the New York Voices, the David El Malek Quartet, Pierre De Bethmann, Xavier Richardeaux, Sara Lazarus, Edouard Bineau, and Joel Harisson/D.Binney

Tours with Manu Katché (since 2004).

http://www.bocle.com/

Born on February 10, 1944 in Atlanta, GA., Rufus Reid was raised in Sacramento, California where he played the trumpet through junior high and high school. Upon graduation from Sacramento High School, he entered the United States Air Force as a trumpet player. During that period he began to be seriously interested in the bass. After fulfilling his duties in the military, Rufus had decided he wanted to pursue a career as a professional bassist. He moved to Seattle, Washington, where he began serious study with James Harnett of the Seattle Symphony. He continued his education at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where he studied with Warren Benfield and principal bassist, Joseph Guastefeste, both of the Chicago Symphony. He graduated in 1971 with a Bachelor of Music Degree as a Performance Major on the Double Bass.
The MidAtlantic Arts Foundation awarded Rufus The 2005 Mellon Jazz Living Legacy Award for his dedication to America’s National Cultural Treasure: Jazz, for his personal and professional commitment to Jazz Education in the Mid-Atlantic Region.  The International Society of Bassists presented Rufus with their highest honor, The Distinguished Achievement Award, in 2001. The New Jersey Chapter of the IAJE named him OUTSTANDING EDUCATOR of 1999. The International Association of Jazz Educators awarded Rufus the Humanitarian Award in 1997 BASS PLAYER magazine, awarded Rufus the 1998 Jazz Educator Achievement Award.

Rufus Reid truly continues to be THE EVOLVING BASSIST.  
http://www.rufusreid.com/

Double bassist Hans Sturm has performed as soloist, chamber, orchestral, jazz and improvisational musician throughout Europe, Asia, South America, Africa and the United States. Sturm received his doctorate from Northwestern University and is currently a Professor and Chair of the String Department at Ball State University.

Sturm has appeared with a variety of artists across the spectrum of jazz music including Eddie Daniels, Phil Woods, Randy Brecker, Dick Hyman, Roscoe Mitchell, Joseph Jarman, Eddie Higgins, David Baker, Stanley Jordan, Peter Erskine, Joe LaBarbera, Alan Dawson, Bela Fleck, Howard Levy and many others. A frequent performer of chamber music, Sturm has toured with 'Fireflight' (soprano, Japanese koto and bass koto, double bass, and percussion) and 'Trinkle, Burkett, and Sturm' (trumpet, marimba and double bass) for more than fifteen years. He has worked in the electronic medium with composers such as Cleveland Scott and Joan Wildman. As an orchestral bassist, he has served as principal bassist of numerous regional orchestras including the Muncie Symphony, Quad Cities Symphony, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Madison Symphony, Dubuque Symphony, Dorian Opera, Rockford Symphony, and Racine Symphony and toured Europe as a member of the American Sinfonietta Chamber Orchestra.

Recently Hans Sturm has appeared at the Beijing Music Festival; the Association of Brazilian Contrabassists International Conventions in Goiania and Pirenopolus, Brazil; the Scottish Bass Trust's International Convention and the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh Scotland; the College Music Society International Conference in Kyoto, Japan; Encontro de instrumentistas in Joao Pessoa and Belo Horizonte, Brazil; the Biennial International Symposium on Arts and Technology in New London, Connecticut; a State Department tour of Morocco; various International Society of Bassists Conventions in Bloomington, Houston, Indianapolis, Iowa City and Richmond; and jazz fest ivals in Chicago, New York, Detroit, Madison, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis.

Sturm has contributed performances and compositions to more than thirty recordings with artists including the Pro Arte String Quartet, soprano Mimmi Fulmer, vocalist Jackie Allen, synthesist/composer Joan Wildman, guitarists Scott Fields, Rolf Sturm, Dave Baney, Jeff Parker, and Jack Grassel, trumpeters Bob Levy and David Young, and pianists Jane Reynolds, and Marilyn Crispell. He has recorded for A440, Innova, Red Mark, Music and Arts, CRI, Big Chicago, and Cadence labels among others.

Hans Sturm is currently the President of the International Society of Bassists and served as the New Music Editor for the organization's journal 'Bass World' for six years. He is on the summer faculty of the National High School Music Institute at Northwestern University and his works for bass are published by Liben Music (U.S.) and Klaus Schruff (Europe). His major teachers have included Northwestern University Professor Jeff Bradetich, Pittsburgh Symphony Principal Bass Emeritus Anthony Bianco, Philadelphia Orchestra bassist Ferdinand Maresh, and international soloist and pedagogue François Rabbath.
http://www.hanssturm.com

Stefano Scodanibbio, contrabass soloist and composer, was born in Macerata , Italy , June 18th 1956.
In the 1980s and 1990s his name has been prominently linked to the renaissance of the double bass, playing in the major festivals throughout the world dozens of works written especially for him by such composers as Bussotti, Donatoni, Estrada, Ferneyhough, Frith, Globokar, Sciarrino, Xenakis.
He has created new techniques extending the colours and range of the double bass heretofore thought impossible on this instrument. In 1987 , in Rome , he performed a four hours non-stop marathon playing 28 pieces by 25 composers.
He collaborated for a long time with Luigi Nono (“arco mobile à la Stefano Scodanibbio” is written on Prometeo's score) and with Giacinto Scelsi.
He regularly plays in Duo with Rohan de Saram and, furthermore, with Markus Stockhausen.
Since the 1990's, Stefano Scodanibbio has taught Master Classes and Seminars at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, Universityof California Berkeley, Stanford University, Oberlin Conservatory, Musikhochschule Stuttgart, Conservatoire de Paris, Conservatorio diMilano, etc. In 1996 he taught Contrabass at Darmstadt Ferienkurse.
Active as a composer his catalogue consists of more than 50 works principally written for strings (Sei Studi for solo contrabass, Three String Quartets, Concertale for contrabass, strings and percussions, Six Duos for all possible combinations of the four strings, etc.) and he was chosen four times for the ISCM, International Society of Contemporary Music (Oslo 1990, Mexico City 1993, Hong Kong 2002, Stuttgart 2006).
In June 2004 he premiered the Sequenza XIVb by Luciano Berio in his own version for contrabass, from the original for cello.
His Music Theatre work Il cielo sulla terra has been premiered in Stuttgart (June 2006) and Tolentino , Italy (July 2006) and will be performed again in Rome and Mexico City in the fall of 2008.
He has recorded for Montaigne Auvidis, col legno, Mode, New Albion, Dischi di Angelica, Ricordi, Stradivarius, Wergo.
Active in theatre and dance, he has worked with authors, choreographers and dancers including Rodrigo García, Virgilio Sieni, Hervé Diasnas and Patricia Kuypers.
Of particular importance is his collaboration with Terry Riley and with Edoardo Sanguineti. In 1983 he founded the “Rassegna di Nuova Musica”, New Music Festival held every year in Macerata, Italy.
http://www.stefanoscodanibbio.com