Nicholas Walker

Nicholas Walker is an accomplished musician who brings a broad range of training and experience to the string bass: classical and jazz, modern and baroque, solo recitals and chamber ensembles, his enthusiasm and aptitude transcend arbitrary musical boundaries.

Walker earned his DMA in Early Music at Stony Brook University in 2004. Formerly Walker studied with Paul Ellison at the Shepherd School of Music, Rice University, where he received a BMA in 1994. Walker has also apprenticed with two master mentors: for three years he toured with swing era saxophone legend Illinois Jacquet, and for the last eighteen years Walker has worked closely with the pioneering maestro of the double bass, François Rabbath. As a Fulbright Scholar (1994-95) he began his training with Rabbath at the Nadia Boulanger Conservatoire de Paris, and has since received two diplomas from L’Institue International Francois Rabbath, one in performance, and one in teaching.

An inventive composer, Walker features the string bass in chamber music and improvisational contexts. In 1998 the International Society of Bassists awarded him Grand Prize for his composition, EADG for Solo Bass. Other commissions include Little Newt for the Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival, a sextet, Magnus Caligus, and a bass/viola duo, Song of Freia, for Ardesco, and Pop Song for String Bass and String Orchestra for the American String Teachers Association, which Walker has performed with the University of South Carolina Orchestra, the NYASTA Orchestra in Ithaca, at the Autumn Bass Workshop in Adelaide, Australia, in Saratoga Springs, and in Boston.

Walker's exuberant and versatile performances on string bass have made him a sought after performer. He has recorded with Juan Pablo Torres, Blossom Dearie, Anny Gould, Paquito D'Rivera, and others. During the late 1990s Walker served as music director and band leader of Bateaux New York, and also played with a diverse range of New York musicians and artists, including dancers and filmmakers.

As the professor of double bass at Ithaca College, Walker demonstrates the art of playing in the broadest sense: he shows the full capacity of the instrument, and guides students to new levels in the traditional repertoire, early music, new music, jazz music, as well as in the art of improvisation and creative collaboration. Walker has been on the faculty at the Autumn Bass Workshop in Adelaide, Australia; the Domain Forget Music Festival, Quebec; at the Rabbath Institute, Washington, D.C.; and he has lectured for the International Society of Bassists, the American String Teachers Association/National String Orchestra Association, and for the New York State School Music Association on bass pedagogy. Walker has given masterclasses and recitals at Baldwin Wallace University in Cleveland, Nazareth College in Rochester, and Sookmyoung University in Soeul Korea, Concordia College in Adelaide Australia, and at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.  Walker has been on the faculty of the Stony Brook Pre-College Program, the Music Conservatory of Westchester, and Mansfield University. Currently Mr. Walker is a full-time faculty member at Ithaca College, and he also teaches bass at Cornell University.

Walker enjoys an active lifestyle performing over fifty concerts a year: solo recitals, jazz concerts, chamber music, orchestral 'performance practice' concerts with The Handel and Haydn Society, and also with his own Period Instrument Performance Ensemble (The PIP Ensemble), an early music group devoted to improvisation, and to exposing a thrilling musical panache of another age. A devoted exponent of contemporary music, Walker also performs regularly with Ardesco, and Steven Stucky’s Ensemble X.  A collaborative bluegrass crossover recording by Stolen Shack was featured on NPR's All Songs Considered in 2005.  Today Walker is particularly excited to be collaborating with jazz pianist, John Stetch, on several new projects.