Michel Taddei, Bass

The first instrument Michel Taddei played was the baritone horn, which he took up at the age of ten. He soon moved on to the tuba and then to the trombone before taking up the bass when he was 13. Growing up in Ridgewood, New Jersey, the young Michel spent his Saturdays in Manhattan at Juilliard's Pre-College Division and devoted three or four nights a week to playing in various orchestras.

But when he entered Columbia University on a John Jay National Scholar, he chose to major in history, a field he continued to pursue at UC Berkeley, where he began his graduate studies in American history in 1987. The following year, Kent Nagano invited him to become principal bass with the Lyon Opera Orchestra, and Michel jumped at the chance. "Once I got playing regularly," he remarks, "history didnÿt really interest me any more."

He continued to play in Lyon, with some breaks, until 1996, relishing the opportunity "to be completely immersed in another culture." Lyon was a special orchestra, he says, because it included musicians from 15 different countries and was marked by a remarkable "willingness to listen." Even though it was a pit orchestra, he says, "we felt we were a very integral part of everything we were doing, and were a focus of the Lyon Opera's public and international profile. We did a lot of recording and we felt appreciated."

Since returning to the U.S., Michel has continued to pursue his musical career with a variety of groups, including tours as principal bass with the New York City Opera National Company and Western Opera Theater, film score recording at Skywalker Ranch and performances with the San Francisco Symphony and the New Century Chamber Orchestra. In addition to his work as principal bass of the Berkeley Symphony, he is principal bass for the Mendocino Music Festival and has performed chamber music and new music with Earplay, the Berkeley Contemporary Chamber Players, Gold Coast Chamber Players, Master Guild series and the Left Coast Chamber Players, of which he is a founding member.

Intimately involved in the Berkeley Symphony's Music Education Program, Michel recently completed a two-day mini residency at Berkeley's Longfellow Middle School, where he was involved in performing, coaching, teaching music history and working with a computer multimedia class. "Even though it's a technical magnet school," he remarks, "my experience was overwhelmingly positive. Kids with musical backgrounds that ranged from extensive to almost none at all were all, without exception, really into the live presentation of the bass."

Michel has been a fellow at the National Orchestra Association, the New York String Orchestra and the Aspen and Tanglewood music festivals, and has made more than 35 recordings for the Decca, EMI, Erato, London, Nonesuch, Philips and Virgin labels, among others. And just to keep things interesting, he's recently taken up yet another musical interest: opera singing. An aspiring tenor, he took his first formal voice lesson ten years ago and began studying regularly in 1996, after his return from Lyon. He recently sung the role of Benedict for the Opera Guild of Southern California's production of Beatrice and Benedict.