John Pellegrino is principal bass of the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra (Ohio) and the Peninsula Music Festival (Wisconsin), assistant principal bass of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra (Ohio) as well as a member of the Grand Teton Music Festival (Wyoming). In summer 2023 Pellegrino will join Classical Tahoe (Nevada). He has performed, toured and recorded with many of this country’s leading orchestras and is on the faculty of both The Ohio State University and Capital University. As a chamber musician, Pellegrino has collaborated with such artists as Joseph Kalichstein, Ronald Leonard, Vadim Gluzman, Evan Price, William Preucil and James Dunham, as well as the Miami String Quartet, Miller–Porfiris Duo, and the Apple Hill String Quartet. Other chamber music performances have included concerts at the Roycroft, Sarasota, Aspen, Waterloo, Grand Teton, and Music on the Hill festivals as well as The Ohio State University’s Contemporary Music Festival, the Sunday at Central recital series in Columbus (OH), Rhode Island College Recital Series and at the OWU•//•NOW contemporary music festival in Delaware (OH).

In 2007 Pellegrino was named artistic director of Music on the Hill, a chamber music festival located in the Ocean State. Before moving to Columbus to become a member of the CSO in 1989, he was a section member of the New Orleans Symphony Orchestra. Prior to joining the NOSO he earned degrees from the Manhattan School of Music and the Juilliard School. In addition to his studies in NYC, Pellegrino performed with the New York Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra, the Philharmonia Virtuosi, the International House Chamber Orchestra and the Jupiter Symphony. He has served on the faculties of Ohio Wesleyan University, Denison University, the Eastern Music Festival (North Carolina), the Warwick Music Festival (Rhode Island), Kinhaven Music Camp (Vermont) and the Chamber Music Connection in Worthington (Ohio).

In 2008, John Pellegrino was the recipient of the Ohio Private/Studio Teacher of the Year award given by the Ohio String Teachers Association. His students have won competitions held by the International Society of Bassists, Columbus Symphony Orchestra, Aspen Music Festival, Ohio String Teachers Association, Interlochen Arts Camp and the Philadelphia Orchestra.  

Because Pellegrino has performed as a substitute with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Chattanooga Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Dayton Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Nashville Symphony Orchestra, New Albany Symphony Orchestra, North Carolina Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Sarasota Symphony Orchestra and the Utah Symphony Orchestra, he has been given the honorific America's Bass Sub (not yet trademarked).

John Pellegrino was born and raised in Warwick, Rhode Island and owes much to his family of music educators/performers, private teachers, the public school music program in Warwick, and to the Rhode Island Philharmonic Youth Orchestra program under the direction of Nedo Pandolfi.