Toby Winarto is a Los Angeles born violist currently based in New York City and recent alum of the New World Symphony. Toby has performed extensively as an orchestral and chamber musician throughout North America and Europe, having appeared at festivals such as Spoleto Festival USA, Music Niagara Festival, Ottawa Chamberfest, Taipei Music Academy and Festival, and the National Youth Orchestra of Canada.
While Toby was a fellow at the New World Symphony, he had the opportunity to work with musical greats such as, Michael Tilson Thomas, Yo-Yo Ma, James Ehnes, Yefim Bronfman, Gil Shaham, and many more while spanning the many masterworks of the orchestral repertoire. During his fellowship, Toby has also performed in New World’s chamber music series to uproarious reception with works including Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet and Szymanowski’s String Quartet No. 2. In the 2024-2025 season, Toby was a co-lead in a planning group that brought a video game themed concert for to the New World stage for the first time titled, Game On!.
During his college education while living in New York City, Toby has been a member of the New York String Orchestra Seminar where the orchestra performed 2 sold out shows on the Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall. He has also performed extensively with orchestras from the Manhattan School of music that include appearances at Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, and Neidorff-Karpati Hall. Outside of his classical music endeavours, Toby has also collaborated with many of his colleagues in the jazz scene to perform with them around town as well as doing recording sessions for CD and video projects including Shai Golan, Xander Naylor, and Matthew Malanowski.
As a result of his international upbringing, Toby has spent time in Singapore, Melbourne, and Toronto, Canada; where most notably he started playing viola and was a member of the Phil and Eli Taylor Performance Academy for Young Artists and the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra. While in Toronto Toby has performed in masterclasses for Teng Li, Ettore Causa, Sharon Wei, and Peter Oundjian. He has even performed in the Air Canada Centre (now Scotiabank Arena) as a part of We Day 2013. Other amazing musicians that Toby has worked with at this time include distinguished members of the Toronto Symphony, Glenn Gould School faculty, National Ballet, Canadian Opera Company, the Linden String Quartet, Ensemble Made in Canada, the Tokai String Quartet, and the Afiara Quartet.
Toby Winarto has received Masters and Bachelor of Music degrees in Classical Viola performance at the Manhattan School of Music under the instruction of Samuel Rhodes and is a recipient of the Ruth Chatfield String Instrument Scholarship. Toby also gives great credit in his musical growth to other past music educators including Eric Nowlin, Dan Avsholomov, Andréa Tyniec, and Margaret Hill.
Outside of music, Toby also enjoys travelling, watching/playing basketball, and working as a professional photographer and filmmaker where he gets to collaborate with many more great colleagues in addition to personal projects.
