ISB Center Stage with Valentina Ciardelli and Travis Harrison 

Next up on the ISB Center Stage, we welcome  Valentina Ciardelli and Travis Harrison for a conversation about wearing many hats as a musician: performing, composing, recording, editing and producing, and what it takes to find support for all these dream projects! 

Valentina Ciardelli switched from piano to double bass in 2009 and graduated with honors from the Istituto Musicale L. Boccherini in Lucca in 2014. She earned her Master of Performance with honors at the Royal College of Music in 2016 and continued her studies with Leon Bosch at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. Valentina has won a number of awards, including first prize in the RCM Double Bass Competition 2016, the Vernon Elliot Double Bass Competition 2018, and the Vivian Joseph Classical Concerto Competition/String Category in 2018. Equally at home in the jazz world, she has played at the Dusseldorf Jazz Marathon, Villa Celimontana Jazz Festival, Tuscia Jazz and Umbria Jazz Clinics and was a finalist in the Tuscia Jazz competition. Currently, Valentina lives in London and she is teaching assistant in Leon Bosch’s class at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance and is a young artist with Talent Unlimited. She won a scholarship from Associazione Animando in Lucca for a research project investigating the music of Giacomo Puccini’s ancestors and her work has been published by the Japanese press Da Vinci. She released her first solo album, Music from the Sphinx in 2019. Valentina's work focuses on expandng the double bass solo repertoire by composing new virtuoso pieces, transcribing  repertoire and playing new compositions written for her from many contemporary composers.

Travis Harrison is a freelance orchestral and chamber musician in his hometown of Toronto, Canada after a 6-year tenure with Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. He has served as a faculty member of the Manitoba Conservatory of Music and Art, Carleton University, the University of Manitoba, and Sistema Winnipeg and maintains a private studio based out of Toronto. Travis jointly published The Canadian School of Double Bass with Joel Quarrington, a first-of-its-kind eBook complete with video and audio examples. He was a founding member of the Winnipeg Chamber Players, and Nova Scotia’s Iris Ensemble and has performed at numerous festivals and on recordings across multiple musical genres. Travis is the proud owner of an old English bass attributed to Vincenzo Panormo, c.1810, and a bass he commissioned from Canadian master luthier Mario Lamarre. He makes music on these instruments with the bows of Canadian bow maker Bernard Walke. Travis has served the bass community as a board member of the International Society of Bassists since 2017.