Gary Karr

Double bassist Gary Karr was one of the greatest players of his instrument in the 20th century, or really of any other time. He was a pioneer in commissioning new virtuoso works for the instrument. Karr had a substantial recording catalog that continued to grow after his retirement, as earlier items were reissued. Many of his early recordings were collected on the 2010 album Gary Karr: Bass Virtuoso. Karr was born on November 20, 1941, in Los Angeles. He was descended from seven generations of double bassists but asserted that he had little contact with professional double bassists in his family and was actually discouraged from taking up the instrument. Karr attended Fairfax High School in Los Angeles and studied the double bass with Uda Demenstein, a friend of the family. He attended the University of Southern California, studying with Herman Reinshagen. Karr went on to Northwestern University, where he studied with Warren Benfield, and then to the Juilliard School in New York, where his principal teacher was Stuart Sankey; he also took lessons from cellists Gabor Rejto, Leonard Rose, and Zara Nelsova, and mezzo-soprano Jennie Tourel. Karr made his debut with the Chicago Little Symphony in 1961 and scored several breakthroughs in 1962, including appearances in conductor Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts with the New York Philharmonic and a solo recital at Carnegie Hall. After the latter, the widow of conductor Serge Koussevitsky, also a virtuoso double bassist, gave Karr her husband's instrument, a 1611 Amati that he used until donating it to the International Society of Bassists (which he founded) in 2005. An early Karr recording was the 1969 album José Serebrier Conducts Mennin, Lee, Serebrier, reissued in 2016. Karr appeared as a soloist with major ensembles in North and South America, Europe, East Asia, Australia, and, in South America, the Simón Bolivar Symphony Orchestra. He commissioned more than 50 new works, some of them by such prominent composers as Hans Werner Henze, Gunther Schuller, and Lalo Schifrin. Among his some 90 recordings was one of Koussevitzky's Double Bass Concerto with the Oslo Symphony Orchestra. Karr announced his retirement from the stage at the 2001 meeting of the International Society of Bassists. He taught at the Juilliard School, the New England Conservatory, the Hartt School of Music in Connecticut, Yale University, and Indiana University, and he established his own Karr Kamps in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, where he lived in later life. He died there on July 16, 2025. ~ James Manheim, Rovi