About Barry Green

Long bio 2025:

Barry Green served as Principal Bassist of the Cincinnati Symphony for 28 years, and more recently as Principal Bassist with both the California Symphony and the Sun Valley Summer Symphony in Idaho. A former Executive Director of the International Society of Bassists, he taught at the University of California, Santa Cruz for 22 years before returning to Cincinnati in 2018. Until 2022, he taught double bass and inspirational mind-body-spirit courses at the Ohio State University School of Music. Green also founded Bass Club Cincinnati, a thriving community for bassists of all ages and styles.

As a double bass soloist, Green is renowned for his imaginative and genre-blending “Green Machine” concerts, which feature jazz, folk, contemporary, and world music in collaboration with dance, voice, art, and theater. He has created three original multimedia productions: Anna’s Way, Anna’s Gift: The Way of Passion, and Anna’s Promise. Each hour-long performance combines solo bass, narration, and visual imagery, and is available in versions for combo, concert band, or chamber orchestra. These works are based on Green’s inspirational books exploring the mind, body, and human spirit.

In 1970, Green became the first bassist to solo with the Cincinnati Symphony when he commissioned Frank Proto’s Concerto for Bass and Orchestra, conducted by Erich Kunzel. He later performed twice under Maestro Thomas Schippers, who personally commissioned Proto’s Concerto for Violin and Double Bass (with Ruggiero Ricci). In 1993, Green performed Jon Deak’s Jack and the Beanstalk with Jesús López-Cobos, and in 2005 reprised the Deak concerto with the U.S. Air Force Band at Constitution Hall. In 2016, he premiered Anna’s Promise with the U.S. Army Orchestra “Pershing’s Own” in Washington, D.C.

Green co-authored The Inner Game of Music with W. Timothy Gallwey (Doubleday, 1986), a landmark book on unlocking musical potential that has sold over 250,000 copies worldwide. He followed it with seven companion Inner Game workbooks for various instruments and ensembles (GIA Music). His second book, The Mastery of Music: Ten Pathways to True Artistry (Broadway/Doubleday, 2003), draws on interviews with over 120 world-renowned musicians and explores the human qualities that define artistic greatness. His third book, Bringing Music to Life (GIA Music, 2009), introduces three techniques—breath, pulse, and movement—for unlocking expression through the body. The companion DVD was released by GIA in 2010.

Green remains active as a soloist, educator, recording artist, and author. He has directed bass camps and workshops for over 50 years and studied with the legendary François Rabbath. His recent educational projects include Stringersize, a movement-based exercise program for string players created with Bob Gillespie, blending traditional technique with pop music beats and video. This program is available for FREE on this website. Green also co-hosts Buckeye Bass Bashes, an eight-part educational and inspirational YouTube series with Jason Heath.

His recent multimedia concert programs include Music from Ukraine and Beyond, which has raised substantial funds through Cincinnati’s Hope4Ukraine Society, and The Four Elements, a narrative-based work for audiences of all ages concerned with the planet’s wellbeing.

Green’s current program, Earth–Art–Animals, brings the iconic wildlife art of Cincinnati’s Charley Harper to life through music, narration, and video. This flexible concert experience features up to 25 short segments, grouped by the four elements, and can be tailored for audiences of any age in formats ranging from 30 to 70 minutes. Green has toured the program across the U.S., Europe, and Australia.

His bass method books include The Popular Bass Method (three volumes, co-authored with Bay Area jazz bassist Jeff Neighbor) and Advanced Techniques of Double Bass Playing. His most recent recordings include Olé-Cool (with Spanish and American colleagues), Live from St. Croix (with pianist James Hart), and the jazz-influenced Seat of the Pants with guitarist Lenny Carlson. Many of his performances can be found on YouTube.

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Short Bio 2025:

Barry Green, a native Californian, served as Principal Bassist of the Cincinnati Symphony for 28 years. As former Executive Director of the International Society of Bassists, and Formerly professor of bass at The Ohio State University, the University of California Santa Cruz, and the University of Cincinnati CCM. Green has also written 3 bass method books and many solo recordings. As a bass soloist, Green has created three multimedia productions called Anna’s Way, Anna’s Gift, and Anna’s Promise composed by Andres Martin and based on inspirational stories for solo bass with combos, bands or orchestra. Green’s latest multimedia concert programs include a documentary style concert of Russian music called: Music from Ukraine, a new multi-media narrated program based on the Four Elements: Fire, Water, Air and Earth and Earth, Art and Animals based on the art works of Cincinnati artist Charles Harper.

Green is author of three books dealing with the philosophy of music, the mind, body and spirit: The Inner Game of Music (Doubleday, 1986), The Mastery of Music, Ten Pathways to True Artistry (Broadway/Doubleday 2003) and Bringing Music to Life! (GIA, 2009).Barry’s most recent projects include an eight part video series with co-host Jason Heath called Buckeye Bass Bashes, and a popular video string method called Stringersize, and the formation of the Bass Club Cincinnati that includes programs with local and Internationally known guest artists for the Cincinnati community,