Tobias Vigneau became assistant principal bass of The Philadelphia Orchestra in September 2024. As a chamber and orchestral musician, soloist, and collaborator, he strives to bring positive change to the hearts of audiences and highlight the importance of community in music. He began music at age five on the violin and at 10 started the double bass; he fell in love with the instrument from hearing it in jazz trio settings from an early age, having two jazz piano-playing grandfathers.
In 2020 Mr. Vigneau and his parents, Kevin Vigneau and Kim Fredenburgh, formed tRio Grande, an ensemble that has commissioned several new works for the combination of oboe, viola, and bass from such composers as Sérgio Azevedo, Miguel del Águila, Mariano Morales, David Dean Mendoza, and Durwynne Hsieh. During this time, Mr. Vigneau also organized COVID-safe jazz trio performances in Albuquerque with pianist Evan Fort and drummer Jonah Minkus to bring live music to community members in the height of the pandemic, when all musical organizations struggled to find a safe way to keep the music going.
Mr. Vigneau has performed with the Montreal Symphony, the Santa Fe Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra, the Santa Fe Symphony, Symphony in C, and the New Mexico Philharmonic. He has also performed with ChatterABQ, a chamber series based in Albuquerque that programs works from a wide variety of periods and genres for instrumentations common and unusual.
In 2024 Mr. Vigneau earned his Bachelor of Music degree from the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with former Philadelphia Orchestra Principal Bass Harold Robinson and renowned double bass soloist Edgar Meyer. That same year he was the double bass fellow for the Marlboro Music Festival, a chamber music institution whose mission is to impart ideals of democracy and community to the next generation of musical leaders. In 2022 and 2023 he attended the Tanglewood Music Center, where he performed works in chamber and orchestral settings. At Tanglewood, he took part in the Festival of Contemporary Music, giving the North American premiere of George Benjamin’s opera Lessons in Love and Violence. In 2019 and 2021 he attended the Aspen Music Festival and School as an orchestral fellow, where he studied with Albert Laszlo and Timothy Pitts.
Mr. Vigneau has appeared several times as concerto soloist with the New Mexico Philharmonic, including as first-prize winner in the 2018 Jackie McGehee Young Artist’s Competition. He also performed in a solo capacity for the Placitas Artists Series and the Chatter chamber series, as well as for the Young Artist Performances series in Hilton Head, South Carolina. He was named Senior Division Winner of the inaugural Santa Fe Symphony Concerto Competition in 2023, granting him the opportunity to perform Bottesini’s B-minor Concerto with the orchestra. He is passionate about raising awareness of the unique musical voice of the double bass