For almost 32 years our bassist Jasper Tjallingii played in the Residentie Orkest, a quarter the age of our orchestra. We spoke to Jasper about the musical ups and downs in all those years. And how did the double bass come into his life?

Jasper explains that he grew up in Sexbierum, Friesland, as the scion of a large, musical family. "I have one sister and seven brothers, six of whom became musicians, though not professionally. With my father, organ music was a favorite. We were raised Reformed, psalms were played on an electronic organ, maybe there was singing too, I don't remember. Three of my brothers were taking organ lessons, classical music. One day a brother came home with a guitar, and that changed everything. My brother then suggested that I could play bass guitar, so I bought a bass guitar and before I knew it, at thirteen years old, I was in a pop group! We were playing songs by symphonic rock bands like Yes and Chicago. That's pretty complicated music, but we still won awards with it. Meanwhile, I had bought a double bass. I wanted to learn to play jazz and looked for a teacher. I found one, but he only played classical music. So I eventually entered the conservatory, as a classical bass player."

Svetlanov
Jasper studied first in Groningen, then in Rotterdam with Hans Roelofsen, then solo bassist in the NedPho. He graduated in 1988, then dabbled in various orchestras and auditioned. In 1992 he hit it off, at Residentie Orkest. How did he like that first time? "I fell head over heels, because shortly after my appointment, Yevgeny Svetlanov became chief conductor. That was also immediately the best conductor I experienced. So many great concerts and moments! He was a magician, even during rehearsals; hardly spoke a word, minimal gestures of his hands, always great music. Sometimes it really became magical. One time we played Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony. It was all great, and suddenly he stopped conducting, stood stiffly on the stage, hands along his body, and we played on, and how!"
"The annoying thing is that you put all the conductors who came after him along that yardstick. Gennady Rozhdestvensky was a phenomenon, as was Franz Welser-Möst. Neeme Järvi could do it too, but he felt it was time to do things differently; slow music in particular suddenly had to be played much faster, "not to drag!" he would shout. Well, it made us quite breathless, literally."