Andreu

Andreu Toron Vaquer

24 February 1815
Perpignan , 9 November 1886

Performer and Instrument Maker

Cobla musician and instrument maker. He trained with his father Valentí Toron, renowned builder of various instruments. Taking the traditional xeremies of his father as a starting point, in 1849, he presented a woodwind instrument (double reed with a metal bell) which he named "oboe-tenor", but would later be called tenora. Although Toron conceived it as an instrument for military music, it was adopted by Pep Ventura as an instrument for cobla ensembles, most probably towards in the late 1850s. Toron was an oboe and tenora performer in several Rossellonian ensembles and managed a workshop and instrument store together with his children. In 1876, he founded his own cobla together with Guillaume Dauder de Baixàs, and in 1881 he began teaching performance at the Perpignan Conservatory.