Philadelphia Orchestra appoints four new string players

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No fewer than four new string players will be contributing to the Philadelphia Orchestra’s fabled sound this season. Tobias Vigneau will become assistant principal bass in September, while John Bian, Eliot Heaton and MuChen Hsieh were recently appointed to the second violin desks in July.

’Each brings a unique perspective and rich experience to their craft’, said music and artistic director Yannick Nézet-Séguin in the press release announcing the appointments. ’I look forward to collaborating with them and witnessing their contributions to the orchestra and our community for many years to come’. 

The Philadelphia Orchestra’s signature sound became identified above all with the richness and warmth coaxed from the strings by its storied music directors Leopold Stokowski and Eugene Ormandy. Not by coincidence, the ensemble’s logo is a simple ‘P’ in Bodoni typeface that traces the scroll of a string instrument.

Tobias Vigneau, a native of Albuquerque, New Mexico, began his music studies at age five on the violin and at ten started the double bass, falling  in love with the latter from hearing it in jazz trio settings from an early age (both grandfathers played jazz piano). He 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.

In 2024, he 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. His previous festival experiences include the Tanglewood and Aspen Music Festivals.

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 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. 

John Bian, born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is an active orchestral musician who has studied with many concertmasters across the country. He was a member of the Milwaukee Symphony beginning in 2018 and in 2022 began serving as assistant principal second violin. He also served as a substitute violin in many major orchestras around the country such as the Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, St. Louis and Detroit symphonies. In addition to his large ensemble career, he is also a passionate chamber musician, having studied with members of the Cleveland, Cavani, Calidore and Muir String Quartets.

He earned his bachelor’s degree from Boston University (BU), where he studied with Yuri Mazurkevich. At BU he was the grand prize winner of both the Solo Bach Competition in 2012 and the Concerto Competition in 2014. He went on to complete his master’s degree at the Cleveland Institute of Music and was also a member of the Intensive String Quartet programme. He finished his schooling at the University of Michigan, studying with David Halen, concertmaster of the St. Louis Symphony, and Yoonshin Song, concertmaster of the Houston Symphony, receiving his Specialist Degree in 2018. 

Eliot Heaton previously served as concertmaster of the Detroit Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera and the Saginaw Bay Symphony. He was guest concertmaster with the Chautauqua, Kalamazoo, Lansing, Fort Wayne and Terre Haute symphonies and has played in the sections of the Detroit and Pittsburgh symphonies.

He has appeared as a soloist with a number of orchestras throughout the Midwest, performing concertos by Tchaikovsky, Korngold, Bruch, Khachaturian, Bach, Stravinsky, Vivaldi and Mozart. Heaston is an enthusiastic proponent of new music, an interest that began with his participation in Oberlin’s Contemporary Music Ensemble and continued with the Indiana New Music Ensemble and New Music Detroit.

He was a double major at Oberlin College and Conservatory, earning degrees in history and violin performance while also competing on the tennis team. He later received his Master of Music degree from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, with a minor in jazz studies. His primary violin teachers included Marilyn McDonald, Kevork Mardirossian, Linda Case and Jan Butler. Outside of music, he enjoys reading, tennis, cooking, and spending time with his wife and their two cats. He plays a 2019 Joseph Curtin violin. 

MuChen Hsieh, from Taiwan, served as principal second violin of the Houston Symphony from 2017 to 2024. She regularly performs recitals, chamber music concerts, and with orchestras in the United States and Taiwan. She has appeared several times as a soloist with the Houston Symphony, most recently performing Bruch’s Double Concerto with principal viola Joan DerHovsepian and then-music director Andrés Orozco-Estrada in March 2022.

In 2020, she shared the stage with guest conductor Nicholas McGegan as soloist in ’Winter’ from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, and in 2019 she performed Saint-Saëns’s Third Violin Concerto at the Miller Outdoor Theater with conductor Ruth Reinhardt. An avid chamber musician, she has collaborated with James Dunham, Eric Halen, Jon Kimura Parker, Cho-Liang Lin, Mark Nuccio, Gil Shaham and Kathleen Winkler. Her festival performances include the Grand Teton Music Festival, Sarasota Music Festival and the Music Academy of the West.

She studied with Kathleen Winkler at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University and with Malcolm Lowe and Masuko Ushioda at the New England Conservatory of Music.