Joseph Conyers

Conyers was born in Savannah, Georgia. He began learning his first instrument, the piano, at age 5.^[3][4] He began learning the double at age 11 after being gifted one by his teacher, Lynne Tobin.^[5] He graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music in 2004.^[6]

Prior to his appointment with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Conyers was a member of the Grand Rapids Symphony - as Principal Bassist until 2009 - the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra,^[7] and the Santa Fe Opera.^[8] He uses an 1802 Italian Double Bass called Norma, which he first acquired while a part of the Grand Rapids Symphony in 2005 and purchased in 2007.^[9]

In 2010, Conyers was appointed as the assistant principal of the Philadelphia Orchestra,^[10] a position he held for approximately 14 years. In 2023, his promotion to principal bass in the orchestra made him the first Black principal instrumentalist in the orchestra's history.^{[11][12][13][14]} In addition to performing, he has taught at schools such as the Juilliard School,^[15] Temple University, and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute.^[16][17]

Conyers has received the awards: The Curtis Institute Young Alumni (2015),^[10] Award the C. Hartman Kuhn Award (2018), The Sphinx Organization's Medal of Excellence (2019),^[18][19] and the Theodore L. Kesselman Award (2019).^[20] In 2018, he was listed in Musical America's 30 Top Professionals – Innovators, Independent Thinkers, and Entrepreneurs.^[21]