Andrew Kohn: Summer Morning Memories for double bass and cello

About the Composition

Composed by Andrew Kohn (Pittsburgh Opera, West Virginia University) for cello, double bass, and optional antiphonal gas-powered weed-whacker.

This piece recalls a summer job cutting grass in an old graveyard. They spent their breaks making up slogans for their business, "Orglawn of Hampden."

Sections of highly patterned music separated by zany remarks concerning chamber music and lawn care (vc, db).

About the Composer

Andrew Kohn teaches string bass, music theory, and Music in World Cultures at West Virginia University. He holds his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh and received the only AD in double bass awarded by the Peabody Conservatory. His principal teachers included Eric Moe, Pablo Ortiz, Eugene Levinson, Eldon Obrecht, and Barry Green.

The former principal bassist of the National Chamber Orchestra and Harrisburg Symphonies, he is a member of the Pittsburgh Opera and Ballet Theatre Orchestras and an active soloist. His publications have appeared in the book On the Music of Stefan Wolpe (ed. Austin Clarkson) and the journals American String Teacher, Bass World, Double Reed, Fulcrum, Musica Hodie, Muzyka, and Perspectives of New Music; he has read papers at Wolpe Symposia and AMS and SEM conferences and has performed, lectured and adjudicated at international bass conventions.

He has recorded and edited for Music Minus One. His compositions have been broadcast nationally.