Mark MORTON
American double bassist Mark Morton, an international soloist and renowned teacher, was, among other things, principal double bassist with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra (Ohio).
Mark Morton is an associate professor of double bass at Texas Tech University. For 23 years, he was a member of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra (Ohio) – 14 as principal double bass and 9 as assistant double bass. First prize winner of the 1990 International Society of Bassists Solo Competition in New York, he is the author of the acclaimed "Dr. Morton" series of books on double bass technique and numerous articles in leading music journals.
A highly active presenter and concert performer, Morton has appeared as a soloist in Europe, South America, Canada, and of course, the United States. He has also been a guest on radio programs such as "Performance Today" on NPR, WGBH in Boston, and WQXR in New York. His critically acclaimed CDs "Thresholds" and "Russian Rendezvous" are the first two in a series of CDs devoted to the standard double bass repertoire. He also shares a CD with world-renowned bassist Gary Karr, featuring the solo double bass music of Paul Ramsier. It was with this CD that Roger Dettmer of Classical CD Reviews described him as "the most artistic representative of the new generation born in the last half-century."
An orchestral musician, Morton has performed under the direction of numerous conductors, including Leonard Bernstein, Lorin Maazel, Alexander Schneider, Pinchas Zuckerman, Hans Graf, Gunther Herbig, Vladimir Spivakov, John Williams, Henry Mancini, and Mitch Miller. He has twice appeared as guest principal double bass with the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, Canada, under the musical direction of Pinchas Zuckerman.
Mark Morton is an accomplished pianist, having performed as a piano concerto soloist with several orchestras, including the Houston Symphony. His recent album, Bottesini Greatest Hits, released on Albany Records, features Morton accompanying himself on the piano. American Record Review concluded: "Mark Morton is an excellent player of both instruments, and the music is beautiful..." Fanfare commented: "His intonation is spot on, and he handles the bravura passages perfectly."
During his time in Ohio, Dr. Morton taught double bass at Capital University and Ohio Wesleyan University, and was an assistant professor of double bass for Gary Karr at the Hartt School of Music in Hartford, Connecticut. During the summer, he teaches and performs with the Los Angeles, Chicago, Montreal, and Vancouver Symphony Orchestras at PRISMA in Powell River, British Columbia. He has given numerous masterclasses, including at Yale, the University of Iowa, and the Paris Conservatory.
In the summer of 2012, Morton traveled to Parma, Italy, where Giovanni Bottesini's manuscripts are kept at the "A. Boito" Conservatory of Music. There, he took 972 digital photographs of these manuscripts and is currently cataloging them for the Palatine Library of Parma, thus preserving these invaluable documents in perpetuity.
Dr. Morton holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from the Juilliard School in New York. He is the only double bassist to have earned an Artist Diploma, a Bachelor of Music, a Master of Arts, and a Doctor of Music, all from Juilliard. His principal teachers included David Walter, Channing Robbins, Stuart Sankey, Eugene Levinson, and Winston Budrow.
Morton plays a double bass made in Milan, Italy, by JB Guadagnini in 1765, a very large orchestral double bass made by Joseph and Antonio Gagliano in Naples, Italy, in 1805, and a copy of his Guadagnini bass made by Paul Hart of Mt. Pleasant, Utah, in 2013.
Mark Morton is a D'Addario artist.