tom vignieri
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Composer and classical music producer Tom Vignieri studied piano and composition at Carthage College, the University of Wisconsin-Parkside and Boston University prior to embarking on a career in arts management at Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. There he served as director of the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, a program for talented young musicians held in conjunction with the Boston Symphony's Tanglewood Music Center.
He went on to serve as artistic administrator of the Handel and Haydn Society, a professional chorus and period instrument ensemble in Boston, working with music directors Christopher Hogwood and Grant Llewellyn. He is currently music producer of From the Top, a nationally distributed NPR and PBS program that celebrates America's best young classical musicians. The Emmy winning television series, From the Top at Carnegie Hall, was produced in partnership with Carnegie Hall, Don Mischer Productions in Los Angeles, and WGBH Boston. The NPR radio show is heard on some 250 stations across the country with 700,000 weekly listeners.
Tom's works have been performed and broadcast across North America and the UK. His trio for tenor, oboe & piano entitled My Mother on an Evening in Late Summer was given its New York premiere at Lincoln Center and his choral work The Torch of Love was featured in a private performance at Handel House Museum in London.
His piece Hodie Christus natus est for chorus, organ & baritone soloist was specially commissioned by Grant Llewellyn for the 2005 Handel and Haydn Society recording All is Bright which debuted on the Billboard Classical charts. The work was given special mention in record reviews by The Boston Globe, Gramophone Magazine and The Daily Telegraph of London. It has been performed by The Washington Chorus at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC and was featured on a national Christmas Day broadcast in Canada by CBC Radio, both under the direction of Julian Wachner.
Orchestral works such as An American Hymn, Concordia (Ballet Tympana), Sonic Debate and Cape Ann Overture have been commissioned and performed by Yoichi Udagawa and his Cape Ann, Melrose & Quincy symphonies. An American Hymn was performed in the U.K. by the Plymouth Symphony Orchestra of Devon, England, and recently featured on a special 9/11 concert given by JoAnn Falletta and the Virginia Symphony Orchestra. Other performances include those given by New York Pops conductor Steven Reineke with orchestras in Michigan and New York, and by JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.
In 2009 Tom received a commission from the Handel and Haydn Society for a new work to commemorate the 250th anniversary year of George Frideric Handel. The piece, entitled Fanfare of Voices, features antiphonal choirs, trumpets, drums & organ and is set to words drawn from Ode to St. Cecilia’s Day by John Dryden, a text Handel himself set in 1739. Fanfare of Voices was premiered by Grant Llewellyn and the Handel and Haydn Society at Symphony Hall, Boston in March 2009.
In 2010 Tom was commissioned to write for the Columbus Children’s Choir and The Chamber Music Connection of Worthington, Ohio, on behalf of the New American Music Project. The piece, There Will Come Soft Rains is set to a poem by American poet Sara Teasdale and is for treble choir and string orchestra. It was premiered in March 2010 at Denison University in Granville, Ohio and at Worthington Presbyterian Church in Columbus. The piece received subsequent performances by Dr. Richard Schnipke and the Ohio State Women's Glee Club.