Ralph Gomberg

Who was Ralph Gomberg?

Ralph Gomberg was the principal oboist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra for 37 years. His brother Harold held the same chair with the New York Philharmonic for much of the same period.

Ralph Gomberg was born in the West End of Boston, Massachusetts, the youngest of seven musically gifted siblings. The family decamped to Philadelphia so that one of the boys could study violin at the Curtis Institute of Music where they had heard students were admitted on merit and went tuition-free.

At age 14 Ralph also started studying at the Curtis with the great oboe teacher Marcel Tabuteau who had taught his brother Harold. Ralph was the youngest student ever accepted by Tabuteau. He went on to graduate from the Curtis, as had four of his siblings before him.

At age 18 Ralph Gomberg became the first oboist in a youth orchestra directed by Leopold Stokowski. Gomberg was then recruited in 1941 by Eugene Ormandy to play for the US Navy in Baltimore. After a year of this, Gomberg left for Los Angeles to care for an ill brother.