Biography

Randol Bass

Composer/Conductor: Randol Alan Bass

Mr. Bass, the composer, has achieved an impressive array of performances and commissions by highly-respected and prestigious ensembles. These include the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony of Washington, D. C., the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and the Boston Pops Orchestra. His Gloria setting was premiered at Carnegie Hall in 1990 by the New York Pops under Skitch Henderson. His arrangement Joy To the World; A Fanfare for Christmas Day has been recorded by the Boston Pops under the direction of Keith Lockhart, and can be heard on their current CD release, Sleigh Ride.

His arrangement of Conquest of Paradise (Vangelis) was commissioned by the Boston Pops and can be heard on their 2000 CD Summon the Heroes under the baton of eminent film composer John Williams. Additionally, his works have been performed by the Tanglewood Chorus, the Grand Rapids Symphony and Chorus, the Dallas Symphony and Chorus, The Colorado Symphony and Chorus and the Los Angeles Master Chorale as well as numerous other orchestras and choruses throughout the U.S. and Europe.

Active since the late 1970s as an arranger, Mr. Bass is now focusing his talents on original composition, largely due to the demand for his music. He has just completed an extensive Christmas cantata, Glad Tidings, commissioned and recorded by the Houston Symphony and Chorus and featuring a narration by former President George H. W. Bush.

Mr. Bass, the performer, has sung with the Dallas Symphony Chorus for a number of years and during the summer of 1997 participated in their Israeli tour singing in several performances of Mahler’s Symphony #8, under the baton of Zubin Mehta. Recently, he performed as solo pianist with the Matrise de Saint Leonard Orchestra in Fougres, France in a performance of Dohnanyis Variationen ber ein Kinderlied.

Born in Fort Worth in 1953, Mr. Bass was raised in Midland, Texas studying piano, working in community theater, playing various instruments and singing with local ensembles, including the Midland-Odessa Symphony. A longtime student of choral music, Mr. Bass earned his Bachelors Degree in 1976 from the University of Texas at Austin, a Master of Music degree in Choral Conducting in 1980 from the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati and pursued doctoral studies in choral and wind conducting at both Ohio State University’s Robert Shaw Institute and UT-Austin.

Mr. Bass historically has worked actively in his various communities to further the non-professional musicians understanding and appreciation for the musical arts. He has helmed a number of civic performing groups during his career, working to help provide similar opportunities to those he enjoyed as a young performer in amateur musical and theater groups. He founded the Austin Symphonic Band in 1982 and was its Music Director and Conductor for three years; that group continues to perform as an official musical ensemble for the City of Austin, TX.

For the past 15 years, Mr. Bass has served as Music Director and Conductor of the Metropolitan Winds, a community-based civic wind ensemble which performs several times a year often at the famed Meyerson Symphony Center in downtown Dallas.

A recording project with the National Symphony and Tallis Chamber Choir in London, England resulted in the Christmas CD collection A Feast Of Carols consisting entirely of material composed, arranged and conducted by the composer.

Finally, in Feburary of 2008, Mr. Bass completed a recording project with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus. This album is a collection of original compositions including a large-scale work commission by the Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus: Passage Into Spirit. This 30-minute oratorio, based on selected poetry of Walt Whitman, is the centerpiece of the album, scheduled to be released in late 2008.