Musician Bio

Sam Viguerie, a native of Atlanta, joins the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra in the 2022-2023 season. He was the grand prize winner of the 2016 MTNA Young Artist Competition, and also received first prize in the 2015 Schubert Club competition, where he subsequently gave full recitals in San Antonio, St. Paul, and Minneapolis. He has performed for some of the world’s premiere cellists, including Yo-Yo Ma, Steven Isserlis, and Johannes Moser.

As a chamber musician, Sam has shared the stage with former members of the Cleveland, Emerson, and Juilliard String Quartets, and worked with critically-acclaimed composers such as Joan Tower, David Roche, and Michael Gandolfi. As a soloist, he performed Ernest Bloch’s Schelomo with the National Repertory Orchestra during their opening night concert, and has performed the Dvorak and Schumann concertos in various venues throughout California, Oregon, Washington, and Minnesota. Sam sat principal cello of the New England Conservatory Philharmonia, Shepherd School Symphony, Music Academy of the West Orchestra, and the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra under conductors such as Marin Alsop, Larry Rachleff, Stefan Asbury, Hugh Wolff, among others. Additionally, he led the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra cello section during their 2018 European tour in venues such as the Concertgebouw, Musikverein, Konzerthaus Berlin, and Béla Bartók National Concert Hall. In the Summer of 2020, during the initial wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, he was a part of a string quartet composed of National Repertory Orchestra alumni that performed over sixty live concerts – both virtual and outdoor – to audiences across Summit County and the greater Denver area.

Sam holds a B.A. from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, received his M.M. from New England Conservatory, and pursued further studies at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music. His primary teachers include Desmond Hoebig, Paul Katz, Christopher French, David Carter, Daniel Laufer, and Roy Harran