As a chamber and orchestral musician, soloist, and collaborator, Toby Vigneau strives to bring positive change to the hearts of audiences and highlight the importance of community in music. He began music at age 5 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, Toby and his parents, Kevin Vigneau and Kim Fredenburgh, formed tRio Grande, an ensemble which commissioned several new works for the combination of oboe, viola, and bass, featuring compositions from Sérgio Azevedo, Miguel del Aguila, Mariano Morales, David Dean Mendoza, and Durwynne Hsieh. In this time, Toby also organized COVID-safe jazz trio performances in Albuquerque with pianist Evan Fort and drummer Jonah Minkus. The three of them helped 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.
Toby won the Assistant Principal Bass position of the Philadelphia Orchestra in 2024. He has performed with the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, the Santa Fe Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra, Santa Fe Symphony, Symphony in C, and New Mexico Philharmonic. He also has performed with ChatterABQ, a chamber series based in Albuquerque, which programs works from a wide variety of periods and genres for instrumentations common and unusual.
Toby earned his Bachelor of Music from the Curtis Institute of Music in 2024, where he studied with former Philadelphia Orchestra Principal Bass Harold Robinson and renowned double bass soloist Edgar Meyer. In 2024, Toby 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, Toby 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 premier 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.
Toby 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 Chatter Chamber Series, as well as for the Young Artist Performances series in Hilton Head, SC. Toby was named the 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 in December of that year. He is passionate about raising awareness to the unique musical voice of the double bass.
