{"id":3291,"date":"2025-05-23T10:11:44","date_gmt":"2025-05-23T14:11:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esm.rochester.edu\/community\/?page_id=3291"},"modified":"2026-03-11T11:37:49","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T15:37:49","slug":"mccormick-gaelen","status":"publish","type":"ecms-faculty","link":"https:\/\/www.esm.rochester.edu\/community\/ecms-faculty\/mccormick-gaelen\/","title":{"rendered":"McCormick, Gaelen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Gaelen McCormick\u2019s career started on stage with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. After 23 years, she “retired” due to deafness and now is making a new path in the arts in healthcare field, leading the Eastman Performing Arts Medicine Center at the University of Rochester.\u00a0Her twin passions for music and healthcare are mirrored in her nonprofit board service: she is the immediate past-president of the International Society of Bassists<\/a> and President of the National Organization for Arts in Health<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pedagogy is an integral part of her career, whether helping new bass players to find their voice and learn to play without injury, or helping teachers create bass studios and school programs that are sustainable.\u00a0Gaelen recently celebrated 25 years on the faculty of the Eastman Community Music School. She is the author of three pedagogy books for developing bow technique, Mastering the Bow vol 1-3<\/em>, and a book of duets for developing bassists, Double Trouble<\/em>, all published by Carl Fischer. She recently completed a three-year-long project to review and compile the history of pedagogy of the double bass, co-authored with violinist Dijana Ihas and cellist Miranda Wilson, which was published in late 2023 by Routledge, Teaching Violin, Viola, Cello, and Double Bass: Historical and Modern Pedagogical Practices. <\/em>Her most recent contribution to the literature is an annotated edition of the well-known 30 Etudes <\/em>of Franz Simandl, published by Carl Fischer in late 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her teaching has been recognized by the Monroe Country Music Association\u2019s Richard Snook Memorial Award <\/em>in 2019; the Eastman Community Music School\u2019s Jack L Frank Award for Excellence in Teaching <\/em>in 2021; the International Society of Bassists Young Bassist Ambassador<\/em> award in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She has been a masterclass artist or presenter at the Pittsburgh Double Bass Symposium (2024), the Penn State Bass Day (2025), the Women\u2019s Double Bass Symposium at the Curtis Institute (2024), the Louisiana State University Bass Festival (2025), the Kansas City Bass Workshop (2024), the Twin Cities Bass Workshop (2015), Bass Works (2022, 2026) as well as many International Society of Bassists conventions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gaelen holds performance degrees from Carnegie Mellon University where she studied with Jeffrey Turner, then-principal bass of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and the Eastman School where she studied with James VanDemark. She is an alumna of the League of American Orchestra\u2019s Essentials of Orchestra Management.<\/em> And because learning never stops, she recently attained her Level One certification in Paul Rolland String Pedagogy.<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"author":140,"featured_media":4213,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"faculty-category":[],"faculty-instrument":[172],"faculty-department":[275],"faculty-ensemble":[],"faculty-type":[150],"faculty-tag":[],"class_list":["post-3291","ecms-faculty","type-ecms-faculty","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","faculty-instrument-double-bass","faculty-department-strings-harp-guitar","faculty-type-instructor"],"acf":[],"mb":[],"featured_img":"https:\/\/www.esm.rochester.edu\/community\/files\/Gaelen-McCormick-new.jpg","coauthors":[],"author_meta":{"author_link":"https:\/\/www.esm.rochester.edu\/community\/author\/kristijan-bogdanovski\/","display_name":"Kristijan Bogdanovski"},"relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 11 months ago","modified":"Updated 1 month ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on May 23, 2025","modified":"Updated on March 11, 2026"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on May 23, 2025 10:11 AM","modified":"Updated on March 11, 2026 11:37 AM"},"featured_img_caption":"","tax_additional":{"faculty-category":{"linked":[],"unlinked":[],"slug":"faculty-category","name":"ECMS Faculty Categories"},"faculty-instrument":{"linked":["Double Bass<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Double Bass<\/span>"],"slug":"faculty-instrument","name":"ECMS Faculty Instruments"},"faculty-department":{"linked":["Strings, Harp & Guitar<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Strings, Harp & Guitar<\/span>"],"slug":"faculty-department","name":"ECMS Faculty Departments"},"faculty-ensemble":{"linked":[],"unlinked":[],"slug":"faculty-ensemble","name":"ECMS Faculty Ensembles"},"faculty-type":{"linked":["Instructor<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Instructor<\/span>"],"slug":"faculty-type","name":"ECMS Faculty Types"},"faculty-tag":{"linked":[],"unlinked":[],"slug":"faculty-tag","name":"ECMS Faculty Tags"}},"series_order":"","mfb_rest_fields":["title","author","featured_img","coauthors","author_meta","relative_dates","absolute_dates","absolute_dates_time","featured_img_caption","tax_additional","series_order"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esm.rochester.edu\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ecms-faculty\/3291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esm.rochester.edu\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ecms-faculty"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esm.rochester.edu\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/ecms-faculty"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.esm.rochester.edu\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ecms-faculty\/3291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34516,"href":"https:\/\/www.esm.rochester.edu\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ecms-faculty\/3291\/revisions\/34516"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esm.rochester.edu\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esm.rochester.edu\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"faculty-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esm.rochester.edu\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/faculty-category?post=3291"},{"taxonomy":"faculty-instrument","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esm.rochester.edu\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/faculty-instrument?post=3291"},{"taxonomy":"faculty-department","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esm.rochester.edu\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/faculty-department?post=3291"},{"taxonomy":"faculty-ensemble","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esm.rochester.edu\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/faculty-ensemble?post=3291"},{"taxonomy":"faculty-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esm.rochester.edu\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/faculty-type?post=3291"},{"taxonomy":"faculty-tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esm.rochester.edu\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/faculty-tag?post=3291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}