ABOUT
Bassist Elisabeth Ellison, native of Houston, has been a performing and recording musician since the 1970s. In high school, she was awarded a Student Recording Award by downbeat[sic] Magazine for the Koussevitzky double bass concerto with orchestra. She began viola da gamba in 1979 with Wayne Moss, and is currently a student of gambist Tina Chancey, founder of the early-music ensemble Hesperus. Since majoring in double bass at Northwestern University while performing with several Chicago regional orchestras, and Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and music theory at the American Conservatory, Elisabeth undertook continuing study in double bass technique from 2011-2014 at Acadamie Domaine Forget (Quebec). In 2022 she was the first awardee of the Specialist Certificate in Medieval Music Performance Practice from University of Lleida (Catalonia). Elisabeth is continuing ad-hoc study in double bass with Francois Rabbath in Paris, France. In addition to double bass, Elisabeth performs on its related instruments: medieval vielle, viola da gamba, violone, and electric bass. She is a member of the Big Sky Music Festival Orchestra and the Renaissance/crossover ensemble Cantiga, and has appeared with many period-performance ensembles, including Bach Society Houston, Istanpitta, La Speranza, La Follia Austin Baroque, Austin Baroque Orchestra, and Mercury. Elisabeth is married to double bassist and pedagogue Paul Ellison.
Professional Associations:
American Federation of Musicians and Theatre Musicians Association, a conference of the AFofM
International Society of Bassists
Viola da Gamba Society of America
Early Music America
Viols of Houston (vice president)
American Federation of Musicians and Theatre Musicians Association, a conference of the AFofM
International Society of Bassists
Viola da Gamba Society of America
Early Music America
Viols of Houston (vice president)
WHAT I'M UP TO
"You're going to be stuck with me until I'm eleventy-one" is what I've been telling my young-adult son, much to his alarm. To wit, I'm following life-entension protocols and stuffing my head with numerous arch-nerd studies that will keep me in your grill for the next 50 years.
Currently I'm reading books in French, studying Latin and German, taking a course in solmization, preparing for weekly lessons in viola da gamba and stage presence, transcribing early music and writing arrangements, practicing, preparing my next program, and, as needed, building A Thing That Does This.
Recently, I joined the initial study cohort of Project Blueprint, a life-extension and aging-reversal protocol in development. If my day was not previously structured enough, now I am answering to several checklists and electronic devices telling me what to do all day. Start your meditation brainwave now, until this thing goes bleep. Stand up and do exactly these exercises for exactly this long. Get on the nosy scale that snoops on my body fat percentage. Here, electrocute your ear with this thing that (quel surprise!) makes your heartbeat irregular, because that's supposedly a good thing. Practice your instrument. Now go to sleep, because your scoring on how well you did your job of sleeping starts in 3,2,1. Partly within the study and partly to bolster myself to do it, I get blood tests, injections, gobs of supplements, potions that make my hair grow and that remove age spots, electronic pats on the head for doing everything the devices tell me to do. I even get awarded cryptocurrency for walking enough to keep the app happy. It might even rocket in value from $1.70 to $17.00 by my eleventy-first birthday. Know what I don't get? Calories. Not allowed to have them. Another thing that doesn't come in the box from the study: smaller pants. I'm going to have to start wearing suspenders soon.
It's all playing the long game. My metabolic age reduced by 3 years, so I'm now younger than I am. If I keep this going, sooner or later my age might meet my maturity level.
Currently I'm reading books in French, studying Latin and German, taking a course in solmization, preparing for weekly lessons in viola da gamba and stage presence, transcribing early music and writing arrangements, practicing, preparing my next program, and, as needed, building A Thing That Does This.
Recently, I joined the initial study cohort of Project Blueprint, a life-extension and aging-reversal protocol in development. If my day was not previously structured enough, now I am answering to several checklists and electronic devices telling me what to do all day. Start your meditation brainwave now, until this thing goes bleep. Stand up and do exactly these exercises for exactly this long. Get on the nosy scale that snoops on my body fat percentage. Here, electrocute your ear with this thing that (quel surprise!) makes your heartbeat irregular, because that's supposedly a good thing. Practice your instrument. Now go to sleep, because your scoring on how well you did your job of sleeping starts in 3,2,1. Partly within the study and partly to bolster myself to do it, I get blood tests, injections, gobs of supplements, potions that make my hair grow and that remove age spots, electronic pats on the head for doing everything the devices tell me to do. I even get awarded cryptocurrency for walking enough to keep the app happy. It might even rocket in value from $1.70 to $17.00 by my eleventy-first birthday. Know what I don't get? Calories. Not allowed to have them. Another thing that doesn't come in the box from the study: smaller pants. I'm going to have to start wearing suspenders soon.
It's all playing the long game. My metabolic age reduced by 3 years, so I'm now younger than I am. If I keep this going, sooner or later my age might meet my maturity level.