Edicson Ruiz

Aged only fifteen, Edicson Ruiz was awarded first prize at the International Society of Bassists’ competition in Indianapolis, making him the youngest winner of all time.

Just two years later he was made a member of the Berlin Philharmonic’s double bass section, becoming not only the first Latin American musician to be so honoured but also the youngest ever in the history of the orchestra. Conductor Christian Vásquez is a protégé of the internationally known Venezuelan “Sistema” and has already established himself as one of the most promising developing talents from the Americas. His debut as a conductor with the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela took place in April 2008 in Caracas conducting Mahler’s Symphony no.2. The symphonic music of the early Romantic period called for a much greater dynamic range meaning that gamba-like instruments, most of which were fretted and five-stringed and had relatively flat bridges, had to make way for instruments capable of withstanding much greater pressure and of producing the kind of percussive effects that were needed for programmatic music. With its thick strings, the four- or even three-stringed double bass that came into fashion around this time was capable of producing a much louder sound. That its sound was also coarser was accepted as a necessary evil, with the result that the double bass’s noble ancestor, the violone, was henceforth consigned to the history books. Cast : Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar Edicson Ruiz, double bass Christian Vasquez, conductor