Early life and education Karr was born Gary Michael Kornbleit in
Los Angeles on November 20, 1941, His father Joe Kornbleit, who changed the family name, worked in a shoe shop; his mother Miriam (nee Nadel) was an
oboist. A younger sister played the
harp. Seven generations of his ancestors had been double bass players but he was not encouraged to go into music, and in an interview he said he had no contact with the professional bassists in his family. He was first taught by his grandfather's friend, Uda Demenstein, Karr began playing in an orchestra as a child with violinist
Jack Benny. He attended
Fairfax High School in Los Angeles and in 1959 gave a recital which included the bass recitative from the finale of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. He won a scholarship to the Juilliard School in New York, where he performed in the US premiere of
Henze's opera 'Elegy for Young Lovers'. He studied at the
University of Southern California; at the Juilliard School in New York City his major teachers included Herman Reinshagen and
Stuart Sankey. He appeared as a soloist with orchestras internationally, including the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra,
London Symphony Orchestra,
London Philharmonic Orchestra,
Montreal Symphony Orchestra,
Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra,
Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra,
Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra,
Oslo Philharmonic,
Zurich Chamber Orchestra, and with the major orchestras of Australia. In 1966 he recorded as a duet a difficult neo-romantic concerto for double bass by Henze with the
English Chamber Orchestra. He recorded Koussevitzky's
Double bass Concerto with the
Oslo Philharmonic, among 90 recordings. and published a number of instructional books for the double bass, including for beginners. When teaching, he focused on each player finding a unique sound on the double bass, and playing with the lyrical emphasis of a singer. The Karr-Koussevitzky bass was once believed to have been made by the
Amati family and is also referred to as the
Amati bass. The non-profit Karr Double Bass Foundation, which loans instruments to promising young double bassists to assist in their professional development, was established by Karr in 1983. Gary Karr died from a brain
aneurysm in Victoria, British Columbia, on July 16, 2025, at the age of 83. He also had cancer at the time of his death. == References ==