Chris van Voorst van Beest

Chris van Voorst van Beest

is an American bassist and composer who grew up in Maine and lives in Brooklyn, NY. Hailed as "a double bassist with an exceptional ability to improvise," (Erminio Garotta - Sound & Vision) Chris has performed and/or recorded with artists as diverse as Frank Kimbrough, Robert Glasper, Gabriel Kahane, and Joe Lovano. Known for his big sound and lyrical bass lines, Chris has emerged as a unique voice within New York's jazz and improvised music community, leading his own trio, writing original music, and playing as a sideman in a variety of ensembles. With open ears and a deep musical curiousity, Chris is also a frequent multi-genre collaborator, writing and performing incidental music for dance (Nest, w/ choreographer Kelly Ashton Todd), chamber music for a book (The Lamplighter), and is currently co-producing a record of Americana songs, to be released in early 2025.

As a writer, Chris is as informed by his deep love of classical composers as he is by his heroes of jazz and popular music, and has ended up writing a lot of music for both improvisation and 'classical' settings. His most recent new work Quintet for Winds (see Chamber Music page) draws as much inspiration from the lush harmonies of Duke Ellington as it does the lively rhythms of Darius Milhaud. In 2017, Chris created his own chamber project Miniatures and Improvisations, putting together concerts that featured a broad program of short pieces for chamber trio, each work immediately followed by the musical response of an improvising trio, exploring the dialogue between the written and the unknown. Chris was awarded a Dutch grant for composition in 2010 to compose music for a children's story (The Lamplighter) and has been nominated three times for the Charles Ives Arts and Letters award.