Boston Symphony Orchestra musicians, from left, Caleb Quillen, Michael Winter, Arianna Brusubardis Grace, and Samuel Andonian.
The Boston Symphony Orchestra has announced four musician appointments, effective with the current season.
Caleb Quillen has joined the BSO as principal bass. Currently a member of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Quillen is a graduate of New England Conservatory and was a Tanglewood Music Center fellow for two summers. He will occupy the Harold D. Hodgkinson chair, succeeding Edwin Barker, who retires at the end of the 2024–25 BSO season after 48 years as principal bass. In addition to leading the BSO’s bass section at Symphony Hall, Tanglewood, Carnegie Hall, and on tour, Quillen will join other first-chair string and wind players to become a member of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players. He will be the tenth principal bass in the history of the BSO.
BSO third horn Michael Winter has been appointed associate principal horn, succeeding Richard “Gus” Sebring, who was promoted to principal horn in April 2023. Winter, who occupies the Margaret Andersen Congleton chair, endowed in perpetuity, also became principal horn of the Boston Pops with the promotion. He joined the BSO in September 2012 from the Buffalo Philharmonic and Syracuse Symphony Orchestra. Currently on the faculty of New England Conservatory of Music, Winter also serves as a volunteer firefighter for the town of Richmond in Berkshire County.
The BSO has announced the appointments of section violins Samuel Andonian and Arianna Brusubardis Grace. Andonian, currently a doctoral fellow at the CUNY Graduate Center, is a native of Greater Boston who grew up playing in the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras (BYSO) and was a soloist at “Armenian Night” with the Boston Pops at age 17. Brusubardis Grace is a graduate of the Tanglewood Music Center and joins the BSO after holding positions in the Canton Symphony Orchestra, the Kansas City Symphony, and the Boston Ballet Orchestra
