Recitalist
Marcus Thompson, viola; Victor Steinhardt, piano
Photo: Fritz Gearhart, University of Oregon
Since his New York debut at Carnegie Hall in the Young Concert Artists Series, Marcus Thompson has been widely hailed as a master of his instruments. He has since presented recitals at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum in Boston, Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis, the Terrace Theater at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Herbst Theater in San Francisco, and at numerous colleges and universities. To mark the thirtieth anniversary of his recital debut at Boston’s Isabella Steward Gardner Museum, Mr. Thompson performed all the Bach Sonatas for Viola da Gamba and harpsichord with harpsichordist John Gibbons.
To mark the Hindemith Centenary Mr. Thompson performed a recital of the complete sonatas with piano for viola and viola d’amore in Boston’s Jordan Hall with pianist Judith Gordon. Mr. Thompson’s recitals have often included commissioned works by colleagues and friends such as Barry Vercoe (Synapse for Viola and Computer) and Roger Bourland (Portable Concerto). He has appeared twice in recital at Boston’s Harvard Musical Association to premiere works commissioned by Association, a Sonata for Viola and Piano by Peter Child, and a trio for Flute, Viola and Harp by Keeril Makan entitled ‘Nothing is More Important.’ At a recent recital at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C, Mr. Thompson premiered Sonata for Viola and Piano that he commissioned from Maryland composer, James Lee. Early in 2016 Mr. Thompson performed Sonatas of Johannes Brahms and Phantasiestücke of Robert Fuchs on the L’Oasis series at Christ Church Cathedral in Montreal with pianist Tomoko Inui.
Each season since 2013 Mr. Thompson has dedicated up to two weeks to tour communities beyond major population centers as part of the roster of the Piatigorsky Foundation Series with pianist Doris Stevenson. Together they have performed in libraries, museums, churches and schools in Arizona, Texas, Wyoming, Washington State, and Massachusetts and on the Masterworks Series at Bargemusic in New York City.
Boston Pops, Bruce Hangen, conductor
Photo: Justin Knight
Highlights of his solo career include a performance of the Mozart Sinfonia Concertante with violinist Yehudi Menuhin and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and a performance of Hindemith’s viola d’amore concerto, Kammermusik 6 with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Charles Dutoit. He has also appeared as soloist with the National Symphony under Michael Tilson Thomas, The Cleveland Orchestra under Jah Jah Ling, with the Atlanta Symphony under Yoel Levi in a performance of Keith Jarrett’s Bridge of Light, in the west coast premiere of Harbison Viola Concerto with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra under John Harbison, with the Saint Louis Symphony and the Boston Pops. He has appeared in concert and recordings with conductor Paul Freeman and three of his orchestras: the Chicago Sinfonietta, the Slovenian Radio Orchestra and the Czech National Symphony. He has appeared as viola soloist with the Boston POPS three times–under Harry Ellis Dickson, Bruce Hangen, and Keith Lockhart.
Within recent season he has played the premiere of Olly Wilson’s Viola Concerto with the Rochester Philharmonic under Arild Remmereit, and in the 2015-16 season, the premiere of Elena Ruehr’s Shadow Light with the New Orchestra of Boston under Alejandro Hernandez-Valdez
Chamber Musician
Marcus Thompson, viola d’amore; Peter Sykes, harpsichord; Laura Jeppesen, gamba
Photo: Lee Eiseman, Harvard Musical Association
A much sought-after chamber musician, Mr. Thompson has appeared as the frequent guest of the Audubon, Borromeo, Cleveland, Emerson, Miami, Muir, Orion, Shanghai, and Vermeer Quartets. And has also collaborated with the Fine Arts, Endellion, St. Petersburg, Biava, Jupiter, Vogler, and Oregon Quartets. He has participated in chamber music festivals in Rockport (MA and ME), Chestnut Hill (CT), Sitka (AK), Anchorage, Seattle, Northwest (OR), Los Angeles, Okinawa, Santa Fe, Vail, Dubrovnik, Spoleto, Montreal, and Rio de Janeiro. Among his career highlights are performances with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in a ‘Live from Lincoln Center’ broadcast and at a Presidential Inaugural Concert at the Kennedy Center. He has also appeared with the Chamber Music Society of Amsterdam in Holland, and with the Boston Chamber Music Society of which he is an Artist Member since 1982. He has appeared on virtually every chamber series in Boston and in 2015, was invited by cellist Larry Lesser to re-appear in the same work in which he had opened the popular First Monday Series at Jordan Hall thirty years earlier. In fall 2016, he performed Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence with the Borromeo String Quartet and cellist Blaise Déjardin at the new Calderwood Hall at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
In 2009 he was named the second Artistic Director of the Boston Chamber Music Society. In the fall of 2017 he will lead the society’s thirty-fifth anniversary season.
Educator
Project STEP Master Class
Photos: Louis H. Hamel, Jr.
In addition to his busy performing career, Mr. Thompson has served as a member of the Viola Faculty at New England Conservatory of Music since 1983, and as Professor of Music at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1973, where he founded performance programs in private studies and chamber music. He was recognized for extraordinary teaching at MIT with an appointment as a Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellow in 1995 and as Robert R. Taylor Professor of Music (1995-2015). In 2015 Mr. Thompson was given the exceptional honor of being named to MIT’s highest faculty rank, Institute Professor, held by only thirteen professors. (SUZANA, should there be a link to the news story here??)
He has previously taught viola at The Juilliard School Pre-College Division (NYC), at Oakwood College (Huntsville, Alabama), at Mt. Holyoke College (South Hadley, MA), and at Wesleyan University (Middletown, CT).
A frequent guest presenter of viola and chamber music master classes, he appeared at University of Oregon School of Music, Williams College Music Department, Boston Conservatory (String Seminar), and for Project STEP at Symphony Hall, Boston. Mr. Thompson currently serves on the Board of Project STEP, and the Harvard Musical Association. He has twice been elected as a member of the Board of the American Viola Society has severed on the board of Chamber Music America. He was a past editor of the Viola Forum of American String Teacher Magazine. He is currently of member of each of the associations. Mr. Thompson served as Host Director for the 1985 American Viola Society Congress XIII held at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.
Recording Artist
His recorded works include the standard and the unusual; concertos by Bartok and Bloch, Hindemith, and that of organist Anthony Newman, commissioned by Mr. Thompson for the International Viola Congress. He has also recorded a fascinating work by Barry Vercoe Synapse for Viola and Computer included in a disc entitled “Computer Generations,” and the premiere recording of Frank Martin’s Sonata da Chiesa for Viola d’Amore and Strings. A recording with Paul Freeman and the Czech National Symphony contains rarely heard works by Jongen, Francaix and Tibor Serly, whose Viola Concerto informed that of Bela Bartok. His recordings with the Boston Chamber Music Society include Octets by Enesco and Mendelssohn, Trios with clarinet and piano by Mozart and Schumann, Sextets by Tchaikovsky and Schoenberg, and works by Brahms.
Mr. Thompson plays a viola labeled Jo Baptista Ceruti, 1798, that was once owned by David Dawson, violist of the Berkshire String Quartet and Indiana University.
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Thompson’s “sound” is full, rich and extremely complex; he has a rhythmic backbone, an edge, even when his tone is most gorgeous and velvety (he wasn’t a student of the great Walter Trampler for nothing). His phrasing “speaks.” And he never allows himself to descend into sentimentality or melodrama.
Lloyd Schwarz,
Boston Phoenix