Dan Carson was appointed to the bass section in 2022 by the CSO’s tenth music director, Riccardo Muti. Carson previously held the position of principal bass at the Alabama Symphony Orchestra from 2013–16, and has also performed with numerous other American orchestras, including those in Atlanta, St. Louis, Minnesota and Kansas City.
Carson was a fellow at the New World Symphony, under the direction of Co-founder and Artistic Director Laureate Michael Tilson Thomas, and has also been a fellow at the Aspen Music Festival and School, the Music Academy of the West and the Tanglewood Music Center. Originally from Glenview, Illinois, Carson studied double bass with Andrew Anderson, a member of Lyric Opera of Chicago and Grant Park orchestras. He was a member of the youth music program at Midwest Young Artists Conservatory throughout high school.
Carson earned a bachelor’s degree in performance from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he studied with Lawrence Hurst and Bruce Bransby. Later he earned a master’s degree from the University of Southern California, studying with David Allen Moore of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Aside from his life as a classical musician, Dan Carson has recently fallen in love with folk music, especially bluegrass. He attends numerous jam sessions and gigs throughout Chicago and finds joy in the music of Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs and Dan Tyminski — just as he does in Mozart, Beethoven and Rachmaninov.
Outside of music, Carson loves to play basketball with his colleagues in the CSO, and will always make time for a Chicago hot dog.
Daniel Carson
