Michael Cameron, class of 1977. Studies in double bass began with Steven Parsons, and continued with Allan Dennis. He was a member of the Albany Symphony Orchestra for two years, as well as the New York All-State Orchestra, in which he was principal bassist his senior year. He was also active in track and cross-country, and was senior class president. Additionally, he was the first recipient of the Elmer Heidorf Sportsmanship award and a National Merit Scholar. Upon graduation from Hudson Falls, Cameron attended Indiana University, receiving a Bachelor of Music degree in 1981 and a Master of Music degree in 1982, both in double bass performance. He was also the first bassist in over a decade to receive a Performer’s Certificate from that institution.
His first academic position was at West Texas State University, followed by Baylor University, and finally at the University of Illinois, where he was appointed in 1985 and promoted to full professor in 1998. In 1996 he was the National Endowment for the Humanities Distinguished Visiting Professor at SUNY Potsdam. He has made over a dozen recordings for various labels of solo and chamber music, and has performed frequently in North and South America, Asia and Europe. One recent tour with the Ensemble Modern took him to many major music festivals, including the Edinburgh Festival and Musikfestwochen Lucerne. He has also performed often with the London based group Topologies, and the Chicago based Ensemble Noamnesia.
Cameron has commissioned dozens of new works for the double bass, and has also performed the American premiers of many works by European composers, including Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (broadcast on NPR’s “Performance Today’)) and Luciano Berio. He has given lectures and master classes at a number of leading music schools, including the Royal Academy of Music in London, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and Oberlin Conservatory. He is an active freelance writer, with articles in many periodicals. In 2000, he began writing for the Chicago Tribune, and has contributed over 50 music reviews for that newspaper.