The Bad Boyz of Double Bass Quartet has played for audiences throughout the county. Of their recent recording “Live,” Gramophone magazine wrote…Nothing. The New York Times has not written anything about them either. However, after their most recent performance, several audience members were heard to exclaim: “wow” and “…hmmm…that’s interesting” as well as “gee, I’m glad that was free!” As is typical of a group of their stature, they are really into themselves and that counts for something. They are also renowned for their interpretations of a particular composer, but no one is quite sure which one.

Kidding a side……

The Bad Boyz of Double Bass is a bass quartet, the members being prominent bassists and college professors. They are David Murray (Butler University), Volkan Orhon (University of Iowa), Paul Sharpe (North Carolina School of the Arts) and Anthony Stoops (University of Oklahoma). Each has won awards in solo competitions and have presented performances throughout the US and abroad. As a quartet, the Bad Boyz have appeared at International Bass Society conventions in Kalamazoo, Oklahoma City, San Francisco, State College (PA), and at the Eastman School, as well as Wroclaw, Poland and Paris, France. They have been featured presenters at the American String Teachers Conventions in Atlanta in 2010 and 2012. They were the ensemble in residence at Butler University’s Bass Camp in June, 2013.

The quartet came together initially for a performance with bass virtuoso Gary Karr during Karr’s weekend residency at the University of Michigan in October, 2004. They have recorded a CD, “Bad Boyz Live!”
 

David Murray has an international reputation as a solo bassist and teacher. He is currently Professor of Bass at Butler University in Indianapolis and Principal Bassist of the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra. He also plays as Principal Bassist with Sinfonia da Camera in Urbana, Illinois, and at the Bear Valley Music Festival in northern California. Before coming to Indianapolis, David was Instructor of Bass at West Texas A&M University and principal with the Amarillo Symphony. He has been a member of the Dallas

 

Chamber Orchestra and also toured twice with the Irish Chamber Orchestra.

David’s first private teacher was bass virtuoso Gary Karr, with whom he studied in high-school and at the Hartt Music School, University of Hartford, in Connecticut. Summers were spent at Tanglewood and the Aspen Music Festival, where he worked with Stuart Sankey. At Aspen, he won the 1981 concerto competition. In Los Angeles in 1988 he won the International Society of Bassists (ISB) Solo Competition, the first prize being a solo debut at Carnegie Hall. David has made solo appearances, both in recital and with orchestra, and given clinics and masterclasses throughout the United States, his native Canada, and in South Korea, Brazil, Israel, Scotland, France, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Holland. He has performed at several summer chamber music festivals including Scotia Festival, Killington, and Cape May. In June, 2001, David hosted the ISB convention at Butler University for 800 bassists from 27 countries and is currently a Past-President of the ISB. He has been published in the ISB journal, Double Bassist magazine, the Suzuki Association of America journal, and American String Teachers journal. He has recorded three solo CD’s (most recently in 2012), a duo CD with bassist Diana Gannett, is a founding member of the bass quartet Bad Boys of

 

Bass with whom he released a CD in 2006, and he released a DVD of theater music in the spring of 2003.

Most recently he was awarded the ISB’s Special Recognition Award for Solo Performance.

 

“…to hear David Murray play it, the string bass is a vastly and unjustly neglected instrument. Murray…became a prime spokesman for the instrument.”

Volkan Orhon is professor of double bass at the University of Iowa. As a soloist, Orhon was a finalist and prizewinner in the Concert Artists Guild Solo Competition, placed first at the International Society of Bassists Solo Competition, and was the first bass player ever to win the grand prize at the American String Teacher’s Association Solo Competition. He has performed solo with orchestras including the Adana, Bursa (Turkey), El Paso and Hartford Symphony Orchestras, and wasone of the premiere soloists for the International consortium of Pulitzer Winner composer John Harbison’s Concerto for Bass Viol and Orchestra. In addition, Orhon was recently a featured soloist at the Polish World Bass Festival, performing the Bottesini Concerto No. 2 with the Academy Orchestra under the direction of Francesco Petracchi.

Mr. Orhon has performed with internationally recognized musicians including Gary Karr, Fazil Say, Emerson & Tokyo String Quartets. He has performed at festivals throughout the world, including the Montreux, Saint Denis‐Paris, Antibes, Montpellier, Istanbul, and Izmir jazz festivals. An orchestra musician as well, he has performed with the Detroit, Hartford, and Cedar Rapids Opera orchestras, and the Ankara Presidential Symphony in Turkey.

A highly sought‐after pedagogue, Mr. Orhon has presented master classes and recitals for the Ouro Branco Festival (Brazil), World Bass Festival (Paris), Suzuki of the Americas Biennial Conference, International Society of Bassists, Bursa State Conservatory (Turkey), Arizona State University, University of Michigan.

Paul Sharpe is the Artist-Teacher of Double Bass at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and is active internationally as an orchestral and chamber musician and as a soloist. During the summer he looks forward to teaching and performing at Orfeo Music Festival in the Italian Dolomites, the Colorado Suzuki Institute, and the Butler University Bass Camp with the Bad Boyz of Bass. In the past several years he has performed in recital and presented masterclasses at Brazil’s International Double Bass Encounter, France’s Bass2008, the World Bass Festival in Poland, many national and regional double bass symposiums, the Cleveland Institute, the University of Iowa, the University of Michigan, University of North Texas, and Interlochen Arts Academy. He has performed as soloist with the Anchorage Symphony, Orquestra de Camara Theatro Sao Pedro (Porto Allegre, Brazil), Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival Orchestra, Lubbock Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Chamber Orchestra, and Aspen Young Artists Orchestra. In addition to the “Bad Boys of Double Bass,” he is the greater part (by volume) of the cello-bass duo with Brooks Whitehouse, Low and Lower. Low and Lower will debut a new double concerto with several orchestras in the 2014-2015 season, composed by Lawrence Dillon the composer of their YouTube hit – “Poke – a bagatelle on anti-social media.” On November 3, 2013, Low and Lower made their Discovery (Family) Concert Series debut with the Winston-Salem Symphony, a show that involved playing, singing, acting, and even dancing. Prior to his appointment at UNCSA, he was a tenured professor at Texas Tech University, adjunct faculty at University of North Texas, and an instructor at Augustana College (Rock Island, IL), and the Preucil School of Music. His principal teachers are Jeff Bradetich and Diana Gannett.

Anthony Stoops is an internationally acclaimed soloist, pedagogue, orchestral and chamber musician and improviser performing on the Double Bass. A prize-winner in numerous competitions such as the International Society of Bassists International Competition, American String Teachers Association and the Karr Foundation, he is in demand as a clinician and recitalist having presented concerts and masterclasses throughout the world at venues such as the Paris Conservatory, the University of Wroclaw, Poland, the University of Michigan, and the Cleveland Institute of Music among many others. 

 

An advocate for new music, Stoops has premiered numerous works by several emerging composers in addition to performing regularly as an improviser. His compositions, arrangements and transcriptions are played around the world by renowned soloists and students alike. He is published by Ovation Press which continues to release several of his compositions, arrangements and transcribed editions.  Additionally, Stoops is also a founding member of the celebrated Bad Boyz of Double Bass Quartet, with whom he has performed worldwide. He has also arranged prolifically for them. 

 

As Associate Professor of Double Bass at the University of Oklahoma School of Music, his students have been prize-winners in competitions, been placed in several leading graduate programs, and have gone on to rewarding careers as teachers and as full-time performers in a variety of styles. His prior teaching appointments include Bowling Green State University, the Ann Arbor School for Performing Arts, the Preucil School of Music and summer appointments at Red Lodge Music Festival, Summer Arts Institute at Quartz Mountain and the Michigan All-State Program at Interlochen.

 

Currently serving as Co-principal Bass of the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, Stoops has performed in over a dozen other orchestras including the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Columbus (OH) and Toledo Symphony orchestras, as well as the Michigan Opera Theater Orchestra and many others. He began performing professionally at the age of nineteen as a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and since then has had the opportunity to perform under many of the world’s great conductors such as Sir Georg Solti, Neeme Järvi, Daniel Barenboim, Zubin Mehta, Mark Wigglesworth, Pierre Boulez and Charles Dutoit to name a few. 

 

Dr. Stoops attended Northwestern University, the University of Iowa and the University of Michigan. He performs exclusively on a custom double bass (opus 12) with a high C string and low B extension made for him by American luthier Aaron Reiley. He lives in Norman with his wife and two children.