Patrick Neher - Bass Player, Composer, Professor - Music that is OUT of This World!

Productions

With a solo repertory of over 300 works that span four centuries, and performances lauded as "creative, inspiring, and theatrical," Patrick Neher performs on a Charles Quenoil model double bass made by Christian Laborie (France), with strings made by Pirastro (Permanent) and Savarez (Corelli medium). He also playes often on an acoustic-electric bass by Breedlove (fretless) and a Spector five-string electric (fretless). For mixed-media performances, he uses electronics by Roland, Boss, Behringer, Sennheiser, Nakamichi, Digitech, Sonuus, and Apple (Logice and Macintosh).

After his last classical-style recital in 2008, Patrick's productions are now almost always a mix of media, are innovative, contemporary yet classical, and involve numerous collaborators. His Crossing Barriers Group has produced fascinating multi-genre, multi-media performances that stretch the boundaries of preconceived-concert-going-experience. He has been awarded numerous production grants, and has collaborated with dancers, poets, film makers, art, stage, and lighting designers, actors, engineers, photographers, scientists, as well as musicians of a wide expertise.

Neher developed (with Suzanne Knosp) a model course on collaboration for dancers and musicians, which in ten years of teaching the course, has resulted in numerous new cross-media dance troupes. ArtifAct Dance Project is an example of a professional ensemble that designed their company after like experiences in the course. Crossing Barriers Group is also such an example.

For more than 20 years, Patrick Neher has produced the Arizona Bass Players Festival, where bassists and lovers of jazz, classical, and electric bass playing have come together annually for concerts and workshops. Neher developed the Festival in cooperation with the schools of music at University of Arizona and Arizona State University, and he created a non-profit organization (Arizona Bass Players, Inc.) that is the parent organization of the Festival.

Patrick has produced seven solo audio recordings (available on iTunes and CDBaby), two DVDs (Crossing BarriersGroup performances), and numerous YouTube videos. He is adept at all Adobe Creative Suite and various music recording and composing software (Sibelius, Logic, ProTools, etc.), and MIDI interfacing with audio, software, and hardware synths.