Philippe Tondre, oboe

Philippe Tondre

Philippe Tondre joined The Philadelphia Orchestra as principal oboe at the start of the 2020–21 season. Born in Mulhouse, France, in 1989, he started studying the oboe at the age of six in Yves Cautrès's class at the Mulhouse National School of Music before joining the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, where he studied with David Walter and Jacques Tys. Mr. Tondre also took lessons by teachers such as Maurice Bourgue, Heinz Holliger, Jean-Louis Capezzali, Dominik Wollenweber, and Ingo Goritzki.

Mr. Tondre has performed as a soloist with various orchestras including the Bavarian Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse, the Geneva Chamber Orchestra, the Kammerakademie Potsdam, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, and the Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra. He made his debut in the Berlin Philharmonie in June 2013, playing Martinů’s Oboe Concerto, accompanied by the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. He is currently principal oboe of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe (since March 2019), the SWR Symphonieorchester (since January 2009), the Budapest Festival Orchestra (since September 2014), the Mito Chamber Orchestra (since January 2012), and the Saito Kinen Orchestra (since January 2012). During the 2016–17 season, he held the solo oboe chair at the Leipzig Gewandhaus and as a guest principal oboe he has regularly performed with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. Since 2015 he is also a professor at the Musikhochschule Saarbrücken.

Mr. Tondre has competed in numerous international competitions and has been awarded First Prize at the International Double Reed Society’s Fernand Gillet-Hugo Fox Competition (2009); Second Prize at the Tokyo International Competition (2009); Third Prize at the Geneva International Competition (2010), and Third Prize and the Gustav Mahler Prize at the Prague Spring International Competition (2008). In 2012 he received the Beethoven Ring, a musical honor given by the city of Bonn at the Beethoven Festival, thus joining the prestigious list of previous recipients including Julia Fischer, Lisa Batiashvili, and Gustavo Dudamel. Mr. Tondre also appeared in the ARTE television program Stars of Tomorrow, hosted by Rolando Villazón. He won the ARD International Music Competition as well as the Audience Prize and the prize for the best interpretation of Liza Lim’s commissioned composition in Munich (2011).

Mr. Tondre has collaborated with such artists as Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Lars Vogt, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Yuri Bashmet, and Nathalie Stutzmann. He has attended the Tokyo Spring Festival, Mozart Fest Würzburg, the Sochi Winter International Arts Festival, the Besançon International Music Festival, and the Molyvos International Music Festival. He has recorded for BR Klassik and is currently working with pianist Danae Doerken on a "Trilogy" Recording Project for Klarthe France and SWR Classic Labels.