Double Bass

Tomoya Aomori

An alumnus of COS, Tomoya Aomori currently studies Percussion with Daniel Druckman and Double Bass with Homer Mensch at The Juilliard School. Recipient of numerous honors, Mr. Aomori won the Berklee College of Music Outstanding Musicianship Awards and the Judges' Choice Award for his performances on jazz drums and jazz bass. As a bassist, he was among the winners of the Juilliard Pre-College String Honors Competition in 1999 and won the Pre-College Open Concerto Competition in 2001 and 2003. He was a finalist of the 2001 New York Philharmonic Young Artists Competition and the first prize winner in the International Society of Bassists (ISB) Young Bassist Competition in 2003.

Mr. Aomori made his recital debut in 2002 in Japan and performed another recital in the summer of 2005. He has participated on full scholarship in the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival in Salzau, Germany in 2002 & 2003 and the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan in 2005. As a percussionist, he performed the Schwantner Percussion concerto with the Metropolitan Youth Orchestra in 2004 and world premiered Jay Greenberg's "Selected Short Stories" for Saxophone, Percussion, and Orchestra with the same ensemble in Alice Tully Hall of Lincoln Center in June of 2005. He also performed Paul Creston's Concertino for Marimba and Orchestra as a featured soloist of the Children's Orchestra Society Scotland Tour.

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Emil Botti

Principal Bass Emil Botti has been a member of the Greenwich Symphony Orchestra since the 1978 season. Mr. Botti is a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music and the Juilliard School. His primary double bass instructors were Walter Botti, now retired New York Philharmonic, Orin O'Brien, New York Philharmonic member and John Schaeffer, retired Principal Bass New York Philharmonic. He was also greatly influenced by his chamber music coaches, Raphael Bronsten, Lillian Fuchs, Henry Schumann, Paul Zukofsky, Klaus Adaus, and Bernard Greenhaus. Mr. Botti was a conducting pupil of Maestro Anton Coppola and has been coached by Maestro David Gilbert. Mr. Botti is extremely indebted to all his mentors for their creative inspiration and also their positive influence on both his career and life.

Emil has worked professionally with the Caracas Philharmonic, Venezuela, as Principal Bass; the Waterloo Festival Orchestra; New York City Opera; Kennedy Center Opera, Washington D.C.; Baltimore Opera; New Jersey State Opera; New York Grand Opera; the New York Pops; the National Symhony, Washington D.C.; Wolf Trap Orchestra, Vienna, Virginia; New York Pops; New New Jersey Philharmonic; New Jersey Symphony; Brooklyn Philharmonic; Camerata of Westchester; and the Springfield Symphony, Springfield, Massachusetts.

Emil has worked under the baton of Maestros Solti, Leinsdorf, Bernstein, Rostropovich, Barenboim, Shostakovich, Gullini, Levine, LaSelvia, and Gilbert.

Mr. Botti teaches privately in the New York and Connecticut communities. He is an adjunct double bass instructor at Hunter College in New York City. Emil also brings his music experience to the Children's Orchestra Society of New York where his responsibilities include ear-training classes, chamber-music coaching, double-bass instruction, section preparation, and full orchestra rehearsal conducting.

When asked, "What is it you most enjoy doing?" Emil's answer is quick and confident: "Performing and inspiring through teaching music. Nothing satisfies me more than the knowledge I am passing along something creative to a young maturing musician in the same way it was passed along to me. When I see the light bulb go off in the head of a student, I know that I have reached them. I know that I am inspiring and keeping their inquiring minds developing and moving forward. This is a good thing. This is my reward."