Nina DeCesare

October 1, 2025

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Playing with Purpose: A Mission to Elevate Women in Bass

Anyone who plays an instrument gets used to fielding the same or similar comments particular to that instrument. Horn players, for example, get asked about the puddles of liquid they leave behind on the stage floor. For bass players—especially those who might be less than average in stature—the typical comment is something along the lines of, “Wow, that thing is bigger than you are!”

Bassist Nina DeCesare of Local 40-543 (Baltimore, MD) points out that, in her case, the observation is often two-fold: The second part of the comment is usually expressing surprise that a woman is actually playing the bass in an orchestra.

DeCesare, a member of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s bass section since 2020, obviously can’t do anything about the size disparity between her and her instrument. However, she’s working hard to address the second point, through a combination of education and a new initiative aimed at breaking down gender stereotypes and barriers in the bass community.

From Flute to Fundamentals

Hailing originally from Ellicott City outside Baltimore, DeCesare shares a funny anecdote about winding up playing the bass. “My mom played flute in her school marching band. So, naturally, at 8 years old, I wanted to play the flute, too. But she said my hands were too small. She told me to pick a string instrument instead, then move to flute when I got big enough.”

The irony is that DeCesare first heard the bass at a concert and, fascinated with its sound, decided on the spot that she would play it—thus flying in the face of any supposed limitations of hand size. “I really loved the deep resonance of the bass,” she recalls. “All these years later, that’s still my favorite thing about playing it.”

Diving right in, DeCesare began lessons with George Vance, the well-known bass pedagogue. She made rapid progress, winning first place awards in both the under-14 and the 15-18 age divisions in International Society of Bassists competitions. DeCesare went on to study the bass at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music for five years, graduating with her bachelor’s degree in 2014. Shortly after that, she won a bass position in the Oregon Symphony, subsequently winning an audition for her job in the Baltimore Symphony five years later in 2019.

“It’s honestly awesome being back in Baltimore and playing in my hometown orchestra,” DeCesare enthuses. “I loved Portland, but growing up here, I’ve always been drawn to East Coast, and it has been great being close to my family again.”

Navigating Gender and Size in Music

Coming back to the practicalities of playing such a large instrument, DeCesare reiterates that “being a smaller person learning bass obviously presents some challenges.” She says she was fortunate to study with Vance in particular. “He worked directly with [renowned pedagogue Shinichi] Suzuki helping make bass technique and pedagogy more approachable for small children, eventually publishing his own method on the subject.

Another challenge was starting to work on orchestral excerpts for auditions. “A lot of the work young bassists do focuses on solo music. The experience of learning excerpts was the biggest hurdle to get over, as it’s a completely different skillset. Half of orchestral excerpts involve just playing spiccato on the same note for a long time,” she laughs. “You’re not playing a lot of melodies.” One thing that was extremely helpful was figuring out a setup for orchestral bass that allowed her to move freely. “Playing the bass involves your entire body,” she points out.

And then there were the challenges of being a woman playing a male-dominated instrument. DeCesare admits that school was something of a “bubble” for her, and awareness of gender stereotypes with her instrument only really began to surface for her after she left college. “I was incredibly fortunate to be studying the bass in a healthy and supportive studio at Rice,” she says. “It was only after I got out into the real world and the professional realm that I started noticing people treating my male peers a bit differently from me.”

Those differences manifested, for example, in the way she was acknowledged or addressed by those who didn’t know her. Often, she says, they would assume she was less accomplished than her male colleagues, at least partly because there were so few other women bassists to give them any frame of reference in her male-dominated section.

“These days, I can usually tell when someone interacting with me isn’t aware of my background or experience,” she says. “If they don’t know anything about me, they typically automatically assume I’m younger and less knowledgeable. I’m taken less seriously. If they are aware of what I’ve accomplished, I’m treated with more respect.”

The problem, obviously, is that this perception shouldn’t be an issue in the first place. The fact that it revolves around an established bias—unconscious or otherwise—related to her gender was something DeCesare began to understand needed to be tackled head on.

Founding the Artemis Bass Initiative

DeCesare points out that lack of awareness—combined with lack of visibility in the career field—translates, naturally, to fewer women bassists in orchestras. In a blog post from 2017, she observed that out of 335 orchestral bass auditions occurring since 1998, only 14 were won by women. If anything, she says, the problem has gotten worse: Recent statistics from 32 of the orchestras with the highest salaries showed that only 15 out of 226 bassists (6.6%) were women, and 18 orchestras have zero women in their bass sections. 

“This is actually a substantial decrease from 2017,” she says. “Part of the issue is that a number of trailblazing women bassists hired in the 1970s and ’80s—Jane Little [of Local 148-468 (Atlanta, GA)] in the Atlanta Symphony, Orin O’Brien [of Local 802 (New York City)] in the NY Phil—retired, and women didn’t win the auditions to replace them.”

And thus, was born the idea for The Artemis Bass Initiative, founded last February to support the next generation of women and nonbinary bassists entering the profession. The idea arose from advocacy work DeCesare started in the middle of the pandemic. “I had a lot of time on my hands, like everyone else, when everything was still fairly shut down from COVID-19,” she remembers. “I started small, launching a book club for students of underrepresented genders, talking about the role of gender in what we do.”

The book club garnered quick popularity. “I heard many times how impactful it was. Its success spurred me to start a mentorship program, fairly hands-off at first, just connecting younger women with role models in the bass community.”

DeCesare says she took a break when she started teaching at the Peabody Conservatory so that she could focus on her students. “I gave myself two years to settle into the teaching schedule. But with growing public attention to misogyny and gender roles, it seemed like a good time to really start talking not only about gender marginalization, but also the lack of awareness around trans issues in the bass community.”

The mission statement of the Artemis Bass Initiative (www.artemisbassinitiative.com) says the organization is “dedicated to empowering women and nonbinary bassists who have been historically underrepresented in the double bass community.” Right from the start, DeCesare collaborated with the International Society of Bassists to present a “Women in Bass” virtual panel featuring several of the most high-profile women bassist-educators in the country.

Artemis, says DeCesare, has three main components: mentorship; a scholarship program provided through fundraising; and a professional development series comprising workshops and seminars about raising awareness on gender equity. One such event, the Symposium for Women and Nonbinary Bassists, took place in May of this year at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. DeCesare was on the faculty, and the symposium encompassed a wide variety of components including private lessons, master classes, and workshops on careers in music.
DeCesare herself led an orchestral training program.

Passing on the Legacy

DeCesare still holds the reins at Artemis. “I’ll remain as executive director as long as I’m needed,” she says, “but the dream is to have someone step in when the time is right.” In the meantime, she juggles her time at Artemis with her orchestra job, clinics and master classes around the country, and her teaching position at the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins.

Asked how she views herself as a role model for her students and bass community at large, she accepts the role with grace. “I’m very fortunate to have both a professional orchestral job and teaching position at a conservatory. Both positions make me very aware of what the students in my studio see me doing and saying on a daily basis. I try to make sure that my actions in either role reflect positively on how I’m showing up in our field.”

Not surprisingly, DeCesare’s own firsthand experiences in confronting and dealing with gender bias figure prominently in her teaching. “My approach has always been to pass on what I’ve learned and experienced on the job, especially because I’m one of not many women actually doing this job.”

She has a lot of group meetings with her students discussing subjects like self-confidence, goal setting, and establishing a respectful studio culture with everyone in the room. “If I’m alerted to any issues, I make sure to have a one-on-one conversation with that person. I believe nobody really wants to be biased in any certain way, so we’ll talk about how change might be accomplished.”

And for those rare male bass players who can’t get on board, she points out that there’s an element of self-selection. “They certainly don’t lack options for male teachers,” she laughs.
When not teaching or playing in the orchestra, DeCesare busies herself with reading, lifting weights, and spending time with family. She’s also grateful to have the backing of the AFM on the job. “The Baltimore Symphony recently concluded negotiations on a new contract. Support from the union is what makes it possible for us to even negotiate in the first place.”

These days, DeCesare says she’s also fairly consumed with a project she started during the pandemic. “I heard cellist Alisa Weilerstein play “36 days of Bach,” where she played a movement from each of Bach’s six solo cello suites every day for 36 days. It inspired me to recorded them for social media at the height of the pandemic.”

She says all bass players start working on the Bach suites at an early age. This requires a few adjustments, for example, changing the keys of some of the suites to make them slightly more manageable on bass. Having recorded them, DeCesare now plans to take the project on a marathon tour across six cities in six states, where she’ll perform all six suites end to end.

“Discovering how the music morphs over all 36 movements has deepened my emotional connection with it. I had the idea of a tour in the back of my head since I started this project. Finally, this year is the year.”

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