Bassist Timothy Pitts will perform at Northwestern State University Wednesday, Sept. 30 at 7:30 p.m. in Magale Recital Hall. Admission is free and open to the public. Pitts will be joined by pianist Charles Tauber. The concert will include works by George Frideric Handel, Johannes Matthias Sperger, Arvo Part, Paul Hindemith, Julius Goltermann and Girolamo Frescobaldi and Gaspar Cassado.

Pitts’ orchestral career began as a member of the Cleveland Orchestra after which he was appointed principal bass of the Houston Symphony, a position he held for 17 years. Pitts also served as principal double bass of Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society and the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra under the direction of John Williams.

An active chamber musician, Pitts has appeared as a guest artist with Bay Chamber Concerts, the Mainly Mozart Festival, Boston Musica Viva, the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan, Strings Music Festival in Colorado and the Skaneateles Festival in New York as well as with the Los Angles Piano Quartet and the St. Lawrence, Jupiter, Takacs and Vermeer Quartets. He has collaborated with such artists as Menahem Pressler, Arnold Steinhardt, Christoph Eschenbach, Heinz Holliger, Robert McDuffie, and Roberto Diaz. As a member of the Houston Symphony Chamber Players, Pitts toured Germany and Japan, and appeared at Chicago’s Ravinia Festival.

Pitts has appeared as soloist with the Houston, Greenville, Savannah, Albany, and Mainly Mozart Festival orchestras. In April of 2006, Pitts gave the United States premiere of John Harbison’s “Concerto for Bass Viol” with Hans Graf conducting the Houston Symphony.

Pitts has presented master classes at the National Orchestral Institute, the New World Symphony, Boston University, Indiana University, the Glen Gould School, Colburn School and the Pacific Music Festival. His students can be found among the ranks of the world’s finest ensembles.

Formerly on the faculty of the Oberlin Conservatory, Pitts is currently a Professor of Double Bass at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music. He plays on a historic double bass made by Domenico Busan of Venice made in 1771.

Since 2002, Tauber has been Staff Pianist at Rice University Shepherd School of Music and at the Aspen Music Festival and School. A graduate of The Juilliard School, where he studied with the eminent pianists Jerome Lowenthal and Joseph Kalichstein, Tauber has performed throughout the U.S. and abroad in such distinguished venues as the La Jolla Chamber Music Society, Dumbarton Oaks, Vancouver Recital Society and the Kammermusiksaal der Berliner Philharmonie.

As a proponent of modern music he has performed at the FOCUS! Festival at Juilliard, Summergarden at the Museum of Modern Art, the New York Guild of Composers in Merkin Hall, and the Charles Ives Center for Contemporary Music, where he participated in the premieres of six new piano trios.

Prior to his current appointments, Tauber worked as staff pianist at The Juilliard School.