He is a double bass player, also known as Tim Gibbs, who began playing the instrument while young and who gave his first performance of a concerto when he was eleven years old. In 1991 he entered The Yehudi Menuhin School in Surrey, England, where he was the first double bassist to gain a place there.
Since then he became the first prize winner at the Young Bassists Competition put on by the International Society of Bassists in 1997 and later performed the first solo recital in the Society’s convention held in Houston, Texas in 1999. In 1998 he was a finalist in the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition.
He went on to enter the Royal College of Music after The Yehudi Menuhin School and when he was 20 years old he appeared at Wigmore Hall in his debut recital where he performed a commission by Edwin Roxburgh for Double Bass and piano.
During the course of his career to date he has played as a soloist and a guest musician with many British orchestras, including the majority of the BBC Orchestras, as well as performing in Boston and Prague. He has been guest Principal Double Bass for the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic and the Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa in Japan. He became a member of the London Philharmonic Orchestra as Co-Principal Double Bass in 2010 and has been a recent member of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London.
In 205 he was made Principal Double Bass, which made him only the fourth musician in the Philharmonia to ever hod that title.
He has performed at music festivals such as the West Meon Chamber Music Festical and made live broadcasts for Classic FM, BBC Radio 3 and BBC interactive. He appeared on the radio series Discovering Mozart where he accompanied the Doric Quartet.
Appearing on CD he performs on the Class FM Records compilation Yahudi Menuhin’s Young Virtuosi.
Taking an interest in children’s musical education he is a member of The Jigsaw Players which perform chamber music and give workshops for the children in Wimbledon, London.
Here he is in his BBC Young Musician of the Year’s performance in 1998…
Sources:
- https://www.philharmonia.co.uk/orchestra/players/18191/tim_gibbs
- http://www.yehudimenuhinschool.co.uk/index.php?dept=16&s=598&id=648
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/youngmusician/history/finalists.shtml
- http://www.facebook.com/londonphilharmonicorchestra/posts/125850347470490
- http://www.westmeonmusic.co.uk/Artists.html
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00x1s9p
- http://jigsawplayers.blogspot.com/
- http://www.geocities.jp/ormandy/bass_cd.html#S199