Calling All Bass Players
Come join us on Friday, March 24th and Saturday, March 25th for the fifth annual Utah Tech Bass Festival! Bassists of all ages and skill levels are invited to participate. Topics will cover both double bass and bass guitar. The UT Bass Festival is an opportunity to get inspired as bassists. The day includes sessions dedicated to bass technique, history, and repertoire, as well as masterclasses and performances with faculty and guest artists.
Organized by Dr. Robert Matheson, the 2023 UT Bass Festival will take place on the Utah Tech University campus at the Eccles Fine Art Center in beautiful Saint George, UT. The event will begin with a faculty recital on Friday evening, followed by a Saturday full of bass-related performances, classes, and ensemble playing.
Our guest artists this year are Dr. Matt Hare and Tyler Williams. Dr. Hare is a performer and educator who lives and works in Southern California where he teaches at University of California, Irvine. Tyler Williams is an in-demand bassist and music director joining us from Las Vegas.
Registration for the UT Bass Festival is $40. Please follow the “Register Now” link above and make plans to join us on March 24-25.
Dr. Robert Matheson
Bass Festival Director
robert.matheson@utahtech.edu
(435)652-7996
Matt Hare – Festival Guest Artist
Matt Hare is a double bassist, composer, and educator based in Southern California. Last season he performed a solo recital in Los Angeles featuring his own compositions written over the Pandemic. In the upcoming season he will premier his orchestration of Hayk Arsenyan’s Stratum, a concertante for double bass and piano, with the National Chamber Orchestra of Armenia.
Beyond mentoring the bass studio at UCI, Hare is a regular guest clinician at high schools in the area. Dr. Hare is also the director of Bass Forward, a non-profit that hosts bass events around Southern California. At the beginning of the Pandemic Bass Forward loaned instruments out to student who’s school instruments were unavailable because of the lockdown.
Dr. Hare is the principal bass of the Mozart Classical Orchestra and the Long Beach Ballet. His mentors include Mark Jelinek, David Murray, Diana Gannett, and Volkan Orhon.
Tyler Williams – Festival Guest Artist
Tyler Williams is a bassist and composer living in Las Vegas, Nevada. Prior to the COVID shutdown, he was the musical director and bassist for Le Rêve (Wynn Las Vegas).
Tyler is a diverse bassist/composer from the pacific northwest. He enjoys playing a variety of genres on the upright and electric bass.
He has worked with several artists including Dirk K, Peter Erskine, Andrea Bocelli, Clint Black, Kenichi Fujiwara, Richard Oberacker and Karina Gauvin. He has performed in several broadway style production shows including Fiddler on the Roof, Phantom of the Opera, Avenue Q and Monty Python’s Spamalot.
Dr. Robert Matheson – Festival Director
Double bassist and music technologist Robert Matheson incorporates elements of classical, jazz, and contemporary music into his original works. In his solo performances, he achieves a fluid interaction between acoustic and electro-acoustic music. His performance setup allows him to perform live electro-acoustic music while maintaining the integrity of the natural, acoustic sound of the bass.
Robert has performed with ensembles representing a wide range of musical genres, including the Ironwood Duo, Portable Masterpieces, the Tucson Chamber Orchestra, Tuacahn Center for the Arts, and the Rebel Jazz Band. Solo and ensemble performances have taken him throughout the United States and to Europe.
Robert Matheson received a Doctorate of Musical Arts degree in bass performance from the University of Arizona where he studied bass performance with Patrick Neher and music technology with Dr. Norman Weinberg and Dr. Craig Walsh. He previously studied bass performance with Barry Green at the University of California, Santa Cruz and Dr. David Young at California State University, Long Beach. Dr. Matheson teaches double bass and bass guitar studio lessons, music technology, popular music, and directs the Digital Electro-Acoustic Performance (DEAP) Ensemble at Utah Tech University.