Leon Bosch
South African-born, British double bassist Leon Bosch is known as one of the world's top players of his instrument. After a long stint as principal double bassist with the Academy of St-Martin-in-the-Fields, he branched out into solo repertory, playing concertos and founding his own ensemble, I Musicanti. He is also noted as an educator.
Bosch was born in Cape Town, South Africa, on July 7, 1961. He enrolled at the University of Cape Town and intended to study law, but was prevented from doing so by South Africa's apartheid regulations. He was permitted to enroll, however, as a music student, soon switching from cello to the double bass. "When I play the bass," he has said, he is a "quite free human spirit." His teacher was Zoltan Kovats. After graduating, Bosch moved to Britain for further study at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, eventually taking British citizenship. But he remained active as an anti-apartheid activist and earned a degree in International Relations in order to give his views greater weight. Bosch made his solo debut with the Philharmonia Orchestra in London in 1984. After a period of solo, orchestral, and chamber music performances, he landed the coveted first chair with the longstanding Academy of St-Martin-in-the-Fields chamber orchestra in 1995 and remained in that position until 2014. By that time, Bosch's recording career was already well underway. He released the album Virtuoso Double Bass on Meridian and has continued to record mostly for that label, often essaying rare and forgotten repertory, as on the 2015 release Josep Cervera-Bret: The Catalan Virtuoso. In 2018 he appeared on Naxos on an album devoted to the chamber music of William Sterndale Bennett. Bosch has been an avid chamber player, appearing with the Brodsky, Belcea, and Lindsay string quartets and joining pianists including Sung-Suk Kang, Maria João Pires, and Vladimir Ovchinnikov. Bosch has been notable for expanding the double bass repertory through commission of new works by John McCabe, South African composers Hendrik Hofmeyr and the jazz-oriented Paul Hanmer, and others. He founded I Musicanti in 2013 and has made several recordings of that group, again often including neglected repertory; in all, he has revived more than 60 forgotten double bass compositions. Bosch is on the faculty at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London and the Purcell School.
© James Manheim /TiVo
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Discography
12 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller
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Bennett: Piano Sextet, Chamber Trio & String Quartet
Villiers Quartet, James Dickenson, Leon Bosch, Nick Stringfellow, Jeremy Young
Chamber Music - Released by Naxos on 12 Oct 2018
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Bottesini: Virtuoso Double Bass Vol. 3 (192k 24bit)
Chamber Music - Released by Meridian Records on 1 Dec 2021
24-Bit 192.0 kHz - Stereo -
Bottesini: Virtuoso Double Bass
Classical - Released by Meridian Records on 16 Oct 2008
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
21st Century Double Bass
Classical - Released by Meridian Records on 17 Sep 2019
24-Bit 192.0 kHz - Stereo -
The Russian Double Bass
Classical - Released by Meridian Records on 20 Jun 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Valls: Music for Double Bass and Piano
Classical - Released by Meridian Records on 25 May 2012
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Virtuoso Double Bass, Vol. 2
Classical - Released by Meridian Records on 9 Jun 2010
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Steve Elcock: Chamber Music, Vol. 1
Peter Cigleris, Daniel Shao, Yuri Kalnits, Leon Bosch, Catalina Ardelean, Veles Ensemble
Chamber Music - Released by Toccata Classics on 4 Jan 2019
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Stephenson: Burlesque for Double Bass - Concerto for Double Bass - Concerto for Cello
Leon Bosch, Peter Martens, Cape Philharmonic Orchestra
Classical - Released by Meridian Records on 1 Oct 2012
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The British Double Bass
Leon Bosch, Sung-Suk Kang, I Musicanti
Classical - Released by Meridian Records on 29 Apr 2008
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Music Of... Rankl, Sprongl & Hindemith
Chamber Music - Released by Meridian Records on 1 Dec 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The South African Double Bass
Classical - Released by Meridian Records on 6 May 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo