Joseph Conyers is the Philadelphia Orchestra’s new principal double-bassist
He takes on the new job immediately.
Joseph Conyers is a bodybuilder and professor at prestigious music schools like the Juilliard School. He is founder of Project 440, a nonprofit that develops skills like entrepreneurship in aspiring musicians.
Now he is also the new principal double-bassist of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Conyers, 42, the orchestra’s assistant principal since 2010, won the spot after he and the 221-year-old double-bass he’s dubbed “Norma” won a final-round audition and played a trial week.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve taken an audition,” said Conyers on Sunday, “and I think one thing that came back is that I can be a little bit obsessive about the process, so the bar gets really, really high. And when you’re young you just go in and do it. When you’re older, you’re like, ‘Are you doing it right?’”
Apparently he did it right. Conyers won out over a 100 or so other applicants from around the world. The decision was made Saturday night with a vote by the orchestra’s audition committee, which included music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
Principal players are generally given most of the solos within the ensemble, and while there may not be as many solo moments for double-bass as there are for other instruments, those that do exist can be quite prominent — like the one at the start of the third movement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 1.
In addition to solos, Conyers says, the principal is called upon to “lead the section, do the bowings, communicate with the other principals about decisions to make the best sound, and to make the best communication between sections. I’m generally the liaison between the rest of the section and the conductor.”
He succeeds Harold Robinson, his former teacher at the Curtis Institute of Music.
Conyers is the orchestra’s first Black principal instrumentalist, and the appointment makes him one of just a few Black instrumentalists to occupy a principal position in a major American orchestra.
That distinction “does mean a lot to me,” he said. “I really don’t think of this as work I’ve done. It’s work we’ve done. There’s been a community of support between my family at home, my church community at home, the many before me [who were] Black who were not given the opportunity to pursue something like this but fought so I could have the ability to do it. This is something that I feel is collectively celebrated and I am just a result of that work and action.”
He says he’s “excited to use this as a platform to encourage others, that they, too, can achieve their dreams in this way.”
Conyers takes on principal duties immediately — along with, of course, Norma, so nicknamed in a nod to luthier Vincenzo Panormo.
Said Conyers: “Norma and I are committed for life.”