Simón García: Overture Deserto for double bass quartet

About the Quartet

Overture Deserto is a rhythmically charged piece that explores the percussive and colourful possibilities of the double bass. There are opportunities for improvisation and to create a wealth of different effects which produce a unique work of colour and invention.

Overture Deserto was composed for "Festival au Desert Presenza dAfrica" in 2012 and describes the sounds of the desert and its people, discovering different styles which he took as inspiration.

The piece is divided into three distinct parts: the introduction describes the sounds of the desert, sand, and wind (double bass 1), the sounds of the camels (double bass 4), and the sounds of early stringed instruments. The second part is a meeting of drums. Women are responsible for playing the drums while they sing, and the magic of drums with voices is quite hypnotic. The composer wrote an improvised drum solo with rhythmic patterns which emulate the characteristic sound of the "tongue singers". The third part is a modern composition of the desert, called the "Blues of the Desert," and it is a repetitive composition that sounds like archaic blues.

Overtura Deserto was premiered in Florence at the "Festival au Desert, Presenza dAfrica" in July 2012 by Alberto Bocini, Anita Mazzantini, Marco Marteli and Simon Garcia.

About the Composer

Bassist and composer Simón García was born in Mugardos (Spain) in 1977 and graduated in double bass from the Conservatorio Superior of Salamanca. He has worked as a double bassist in the Royal Orchestra of Galicia, having also performed in many orchestras throughout Spain, and is the bassist in the Symphony Wind Orchestra of A Coruña.

His music has been performed in Mexico, Venezuela, Uruguay, Denmark, Spain, Japan, Italy, Austria, Germany, Canada, USA, and UK by The Bass Gang, Bass Instinct, and Il Quint-etto amongst others, and some of his music was used as teaching material in the 2011 ISB Year of Collaborative Music.

Simón García’s music is lively, jazzy, and rhythmic with great forward momentum and drive. Accessible for players and audiences alike, he writes colourful music of distinction and energy, employing the entire range of the double bass.