Ithaca College

Professor of Double Bass and Early Music, Nicholas Walker, spent the first week of 2013 teaching at the Leipzig Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Germany.  Professor Walker gave five days of classes and individual lessons to a score of double bassists from Germany, Hungary, Turkey, and Japan. Walker helped the students of professor Frithjof-Martin Grabner prepare for and perform a class recital featuring music by Johannes Brahms, Johann Sebastian Bach, Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf, Emanuel Strorch, Franz Simandl, Adolf Misek, and Vilmos Montag.

While in Leipzig, Walker also visited the Bach Archive, and Thomaskirche, where Johann Sebastian Bach worked from 1723-1750.  Among other pertinent resources, both of these museums featured exhibits of rare, original double basses from Bach's time, including a violone by Leonhardt Pradler from 1672.