Departure Duo

The Departure Duo, composed of Nina Guo and Edward Kass, seeks to commission and expose repertory written for the combination of soprano and double bass; they dub it "high-low" repertory. The duo's 30 by '30 project aims to amass 30 hours of music for soprano and double bass by 2030. The Departure Duo was formed by soprano Guo and double bassist Kass at Boston's New England Conservatory of Music in 2014. Both members have individual careers; Guo was studying for a voice degree at the conservatory at the time and has gone on to earn a master's degree in Sound Studies and Sonic Arts at the Universität der Künste in Berlin. Kass took up the double bass as a public school elementary student and attended the New England Conservatory for undergraduate and graduate degrees, studying with Todd Seeber and Lawrence Wolfe. Seeber and Lisa Saffer gave the new duo mentorship, and the pair also received guidance from violist Kim Kashkashian, soprano Tony Arnold, and pianist Stephen Drury. The Departure Duo has appeared at a variety of venues and events oriented toward contemporary music in the U.S. and abroad, including the Spoleto Festival USA, the Center for New Music in San Francisco, Omaha Under the Radar, and KM28 (Berlin). Since the duo was founded, the pair have emphasized the commissioning of new music for soprano and double bass. By 2022, they had performed a dozen new works. The effort has received support and recognition from Chamber Music America's Classical Commissioning Grant Program and the New England Conservatory's Entrepreneurial Musicianship Department. The 30 by '30 project has been focused not only on new music but also researching pieces that already exist. By the early 2020s, the group had already cataloged 22 hours of music and made it freely available. The Departure Duo released its debut album, Immensity Of, in 2022, on the New Focus Recordings label.
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