DAVID HORN, double bass

A native of Marin County, California, David began playing the Double Bass in the jazz band of Sir Francis Drake High School. His formal studies started with Barry Green at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Other influential teachers include Charles Chandler and Shinji Eshima. David went on to earn a Bachelor’s Degree in Double Bass performance at the prestigious Indiana University under the tutelage of Bruce Bransby.

During his studies, David spent two formative summers playing orchestral and chamber music at the Schleswig Holstein Music Festival in Northern Germany. While there he was privileged to work with such luminary conductors as Christoph Eschenbach, Kurt Masur, Valery Gergiev, Sir Neville Marriner, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, and Kent Nagano, among others. During his second summer in Germany, David won an audition and joined the Essener Philharmoniker-one of the leading opera orchestras in Europe. He played two seasons in Essen and gained a wide knowledge of the operatic and symphonic literature. Other successful auditions led to tutti positions with the Osnabrücker Symphonieorchester, Oldenburgisches Staatstheater, and in 2009 culminated in a position at the Deutsche Oper Berlin (German State Opera).

While at the Deutsche Oper he performed Wagner’s Ring Cycle, and played on a DVD of a fully staged version of Rienzi. During his time in Germany, he performed a wide range of the operatic literature by Mozart, Verdi, Puccini, Wagner, and Strauss, to name a few. In 2007, David again performed Wagner’s Ring Cycle under Zubin Mehta during the inaugural season of the Palau De Les Arts opera house in Valencia, Spain. He was privileged to augment his studies under some of Europe’s leading Double Bass players including Berlin Philharmonic Principals Matthew Macdonald and Esko Laine, as well as Enno Zenft, Peter Pühn, and with Ekkehard Beringer at the Hannover University for Music and Theater.

Since returning to the Bay Area, David has been actively freelancing as an orchestral and chamber musician. He has performed with Opera San Jose, as well as with the Marin, Oakland, Stockton, Modesto, Berkeley, Napa Valley, Reno, and Fremont symphonies, Sacramento Philharmonic, and the Stockton Chorale. During summers he has played in the Spoleto, Aspen, Schleswig Holstein, and Mendocino music festivals, and performed chamber music with members of the San Francisco Symphony. Equally at home on the concert stage or in the recording studio, David has played on numerous commercial and film recordings, the most recent being “The Conference of the Animals” scored by David Newman.

In addition to performing, David is also passionate about teaching. As well as maintaining a private bass studio he has worked as a chamber music coach and string teacher at the College of Marin, San Rafael and Terra Linda High Schools, White Hill Middle School, and Marin Youth Orchestra.

In his free time, David enjoys running and hiking in the hills of Marin, as well as a love for learning and speaking foreign languages.