Reviewing Joel Quarrington’s debut recital for the International Society of Bassists Oklahoma City convention in June of 2007, England’s Double Bassist magazine said, “his performance was mesmerizing – his trademark bel canto playing style brought an otherworldly quality to Bottesini’s Elegy in D...impeccable articulation, a rich tonal palette, absolute control and crystalline clarity.” Reviews such as this have confirmed his reputation as one of today’s leading double bassists.
Born in Toronto, Joel Quarrington began playing the bass at the age of eleven in order to complete a bluegrass/folk trio with his two older brothers, Tony and Paul. Tony Quarrington is the acclaimed jazz guitarist and composer and Paul is the well known novelist, musican and writer. Joel began formal studies of the double bass when he was thirteen with Thomas Monohan, the late principal bassist of the Toronto Symphony as well as Peter Madgett who was also a member of the Toronto Symphony. Upon graduation from the University of Toronto, he was awarded the “Eaton Scholarship” as the school’s most outstanding graduate. Subsequent studies took him to Italy and Austria where he studied with two legendary bass masters, Franco Petracchi and Ludwig Streicher.
Joel is a winner of the Geneva International Competition, and has made solo appearances in Canada, the United States, Europe and China. He has played concerti with many Canadian orchestras including those of the National Arts Centre, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Hamilton, and as well as the Toronto Symphony.
For over thirty years Joel has served as the Principal Double Bassist of many ensembles including the Canadian Opera Company, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa.
In April of 2005 Joel had the honour of playing the world premier John Harbison’s Concerto for Bass Viol with the Toronto Symphony and Hugh Wolf.
Joel Quarrington teaches at Montreal’s McGill University and in the summers, at the Orford Arts Centre (Quebec), where his master classes have attracted players from around the world. He has been a guest teacher for the Danish Bass Society and Beijing’s China Conservatory, as well as the Australian String Academy and London’s Royal Academy of Music.
Joel Quarrington is in great demand as a chamber musician and has performed with many of the world’s leading string quartets including the Orford, Vermeer, Cleveland, Colorado, St. Lawrence, Allegri, Artis, Leipzig and Tokyo Quartets. He is particularly honoured to have been a part of a 1982 recording session with the legendary Glenn Gould for the soundtrack of Timothy Findley’s The Wars. Written for solo cello and bass and based on Brahms’ Intermezzi, this turned out to be the last music composed by Gould before his untimely death.
Joel is a regular performer with the Pinchas Zukerman Chamber Players. Their Sony recording of Schubert’s Trout Quintet with Yefim Bronfman became an instant classic. Joel’s solo recordings, Virtuoso Reality on CBC Records and his two NAXOS discs of the music by Giovanni Bottesini were all released to critical acclaim. September 2009 sees the release of his newest and finest recording to date, “Garden Scene” which is from the Analekta record company of Montreal.
He performs on an Italian bass made in 1630 by the Italian master, Santo Paolo Maggini and is an enthusiastic advocate of the historical practice of tuning the bass in fifths (CGDA, an octave lower than the cello) rather than the customary fourths. He believes fifths tuning leads to clearer and more accurate performance in all ranges of the bass, as well as greater tonal richness. In his spare time, Joel is a truly terrible Erhu player (chinese two string violin) and has already released his seventh erhu cd, “Erhu’s (the) Greatest; A Golden Decade” which is a compilation disc and features the Quarrington Brothers 1999 appearence on Peter Gzwoski’s CBC radio show “Morningside” as well as highlights from such memorable recordings as “Country Erhu ‘98“, “Everybody Digs the Erhu“, “The Three Erhus at the Acropolis” and “Erhus From Beyond the Galaxy“.
Joel Quarrington about his new CD “Garden Scene”:
“I am really happy to announce the September 22nd release of my newest and BEST! recording to date from the Analekta record company of Montreal, “Garden Scene”. This recital program is the one I prepared for the 2007 International Society of Bassists Convention in Oklahoma City. After that very successful recital I was very honoured and flattered to be invited to play all over the world! I took the same program to Copenhagen, Vienna, Beijing as well as right here at the International Chamber Music Festival in Ottawa. For the actual recording of “Garden Scene”, I had the very good fortune to work with my life long colleague and friend Roberto Occhipinti who acted as the producer and editor. Roberto is probably best known for his work in jazz although he did start out as a classical player and in fact was formerly the Principal Bassist of the Canadian Opera Company. He has played and recorded extensively with Cuban expatriate jazz pianist Hilario Durán and Jane Bunnett, he has his own R&B band, “Soul Stew”, and has toured with many others like the “Gorillaz”; in more recent years he has been the producer for classical artists such as the True North Brass, Quartetto Gelatto, the Gryphon Trio, the St. Lawrence Quartet and Via Salzburg. His many awards include National Jazz Awards, Junos, as well as a Socan award he received for his soundtrack for the cartoon series, “George Shrinks”. As the recording process unfolded, Roberto showed me though was how truly fantastic his ears are! He obviously knows how to record a bass (his answer; 10 microphones) and many who have heard “Garden Scene” have commented that it is probably the best recorded bass sound they have heard. I like to point out that despite my many attempts at helping him edit the cd, he ignored me completely and did it by himself, and by ear alone, that is to say, with no music scores! I would encourage those interested to check out Roberto’s website, http://www.robertoocchipinti.com to see and hear his many excellent recordings and compositions.I am also quite pleased about the repertoire on this cd; My transcriptions of the Korngold “Garden Scene” as well as the complete J.C. Bach “Concerto in G minor” (originally c minor for viola) are included as well as the world premiere recording of the very important “Solo Sonata” by Mieczyslaw Weinberg whose close friend and mentor was Shostakovich. I feel this is a very important original work for bass that should be a staple of our 20th century repertoire. My longtime accompanist, Andrew Burashko and I round out the program with the “Four Pieces” by Gliere which I think sound really great and my old favourite the Bottesini “Elegy”. After all this time it was wonderful to re-record that work and I find our performance to be so much better than our original Naxos recording in every way. The largest classical record company in Canada “Analekta” purchased our recording and took over all the production concerns and distribution which I couldn’t be happier about.”
The recording is available from itunes, Amazon and others, or else directly from Analekta itself (Click links below). It is not available until after September 22nd release though!