Daniel Marillier

Daniel Marillier began to play the double bass at the age of seven in the class of his father André Marillier in Nice.

He entered the Paris Conservatoire National Superior de Musique in 1977. There he was taught by Jean-Marc Rollez and was influenced by Rollez’s ambitious vision for the double bass as a concert instrument. He won various prizes, including the Special Prize of the Jury at the International Competition on the Isle of Man. Daniel Marillier became principal double bass in the Orchestre de Nice, and the Orchestre de Strasbourg and, in 1984 at the age of twenty two, principal double bass (called: super-soloist) in the Orchestra of the Opéra National de Paris . He also taught, becoming professor at the National Conservatory of Strasbourg and assistant professor in Lyon at the National Conservatory. He is currently professor at the C.N.R of Boulogne Billancourt and teaches during the summer at various academies including Nice, Flaine, Abaye de Floreffe in Belgium.

His career as a concert performer has taken him all over the world, with concerts in North America, Taiwan and Japan as well as Germany, Italy and France. In December 1999 he served on Jury of the International violin-making competition in Paris and featured with Anne-Sophie Mutter in the final gala concert. Daniel Marillier has recorded Prestige of the Double Bass with BNL ( Rachmaninov, Ravel, Paganini...) and the Singing of the Double Bass with the Orchestre d’Auvergne, under the direction of F. X. Bilger (Concertino by Larson, Funeral Music by Hindemith...).

Daniel Marillier plays a modern double bass, designed and built by Patrick Charton, the Gold Medallist of the 1999 Paris International Violin-making Competition. For more than fifteen years Marillier and Charton have collaborated on research into double bass design, with an emphasis on modern playing requirements - rich timbre from the bass to the treble, power and playing ease. His bow, also modern, has been built in the same sprit by the bow makers Augagneur and Bergeron.