Sam Bobinski

Samuel Bobinski is an adventurous and versatile musician, teacher, arranger, composer, and double bassist who thrives on collaboration and creating exciting live musical experiences across genres and styles, from classical music and jazz to rock, bluegrass, heavy metal, bossa nova, disco, and almost everything in between. He performs both as a soloist and as section player in a wide range of ensembles.

     Mr. Bobinski was a member of the Yale Philharmonia and has performed with distinguished artists such as Krzysztof Penderecki, James Conlon and Peter Oundjian. This fall, he appeared as principal double bass with the orchestra at Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center under the direction of John Adams. He has performed with smaller orchestra projects such as the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra and Cantata Profana ensemble, both in New Haven. As a soloist, Mr. Bobinski won the Rutgers Sinfonia Concerto Competition in 2012, performing Nino Rota’s “Divertimento Concertante” with the Rutgers Sinfonia later that year. He has performed in solo recitals at Rutgers University, Yale University, and William Paterson University as well. Mr. Bobinski has performed in several chamber groups while at these schools, most recently performing Prokofiev’s Quintet at the Yale Vista Concert in December 2014. He has considerable experience performing new compositions, premiering three new chamber pieces by the ASCAP award-winning composer Jesse Limbacher in the past year.

     As a teacher, Mr. Bobinski teaches private double bass lessons. He was a teaching artist with the music education program MusAid and traveled with them to Belize in August 2014. While there, he performed chamber music with the other teaching artists in addition to providing lessons, pedagogy classes, and orchestral music training to the young artists in Belize City. Through the Music In Schools Initiative at Yale, Mr. Bobinski taught double bass to aspiring musicians in the New Haven area, and participated as a teaching artist through the initiative’s summer music program, the Morse Academy.

     Other career highlights include being part of the recording of Massenet’s “Cendrillion” by the Rutgers Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Kynan Johns and released by Naxos Records. He has experience arranging music for a variety of ensembles and styles. He started, performs with, and arranges/composes music for a big band in New Haven consisting of fellow graduate students and colleagues. Mr. Bobinski also plays jazz around the New Haven area regularly. He attended the Round Top Music Festival in Round Top, Texas, in 2012 and 2014, performing with the orchestras, chamber groups, and in master classes. In 2015, he participated in the Norfolk Choral Music Festival, and was part of a world premiere performance of a piece by Yale graduate Michael Laurello.

     Mr. Bobinski graduated from the Yale School of Music with a Master of Music degree, where he studied with Mr. Donald Palma. He graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree summa cum laude from the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University in 2013. He has a second degree black belt in Isshinryu Karate and has considerable experience teaching karate to people of all ages. In addition to music, Mr. Bobinski enjoys brewing beer, cooking (especially food with beer added), running barefoot, reading, writing, and traveling, even though he doesn’t do any of those things as often as he would like. He is an avid beer enthusiast, as many bass players are, and enjoys film, comedy, art, and animation. He is currently an intern at the Yale Collection of Musical Instruments.