TIMOTHY PITTS
Associate Professor of Double Bass
Principal, Houston Symphony

B.Mus. with distinction in performance (1981) New England Conservatory of Music 2272 Alice Pratt Brown Hall 713-348-2308 tpitts@rice.edu

TIMOTHY PITTS, principal bass of the Houston Symphony, graduated with distinction from the New England Conservatory of Music where his teachers were Lawrence Wolfe and Edwin Barker. In 1979 he was awarded a Leonard Bernstein Fellowship to attend Tanglewood, and, while there, was the recipient of the Gustav Golden Award.

Pitts was a member of the Cleveland Orchestra from 1985 to 1992, at which time he joined the Houston Symphony as principal bass. He has also held the position of principal bass with the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra and with the Handel and Haydn Society.

An active chamber musician, Pitts has appeared as a guest artist with the Boston Musica Viva, the M.I.T. Chamber Players, the Amabile and Los Angeles Piano Quartets, and the Cleveland Octet. He has collaborated with such artists as Arnold Steinhardt, Christoph Eschenbach, Laurence Lesser, Heinz Holliger, and on numerous occasions, with the Vermeer Quartet. As a member of the Houston Symphony Chamber Players, he toured Germany and Japan and performed at the Ravinia Festival. Additional performances include appearances as soloist with the Houston and Savannah Symphonies as well as the Midwest Bass Symposium, the Bay Chamber Concerts, Mainly Mozart, and the Skaneateles and Pacific Music Festivals.

As an educator, Pitts has given master classes at the National Orchestral Institute in College Park, Maryland, the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan, and the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California. Formerly on the faculty of the Oberlin Conservatory, he is currently Associate Professor of Double Bass at the Shepherd School of Music.