Richard Thompson
Associate Professor, Jazz Studies
M240
619-594-1605
(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
MM, Jazz Studies, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ
Performance Diploma, Berklee College of Music, Boston, MA
BM, Edinburgh University, Scotland, U.K.
Richard Thompson is a performer and composer whose work resists a single stylistic category. His compositions combine European and African-American styles, so that the formal structures of European classical music develop ideas, which are essentially jazz in nature. Originally from Aberdeen, Scotland, Mr. Thompson made his debut at the Purcell Room, in the Royal Festival Hall in London. He has appeared in live broadcasts for B.B.C. Jazz and Classical Radio, Italian National Television and Radio and also given concerts at La Piccola Scala in Milan, among many others. His orchestral appearances include The Harlem Festival Orchestra, The Boston Orchestra and Chorale, The Glasgow Chamber Orchestra and The Aberdeen Chamber Orchestra.
Mr. Thompson has received numerous grants, including from Meet the Composer and The Brooklyn Arts Council, which in 1999 awarded him the first Individual Artist Award for classical music composition. The winning piece, “Legend Of The Moors”, is a musical depiction of the influence of the Moors in Spain during the Middle Ages, and was premiered at The Brooklyn Conservatory in 1999. In 2000 his orchestral piece, “Voices”, had its premiere with the Long Island Sound Symphony Orchestra under Dorothy Savitch. Other composition and recording credits include excerpts of Graeme Revell’s music for the film “Chinese Box”, composing and recording music for the film “Love Walked In” and co-writing the score for an independent feature, “Dogs: The Rise and Fall Of An All Girl Bookie Joint” and for the independent film, “Girlfight.”
His CD of original compositions, “Poetry Prelude”, was released in 2006 by Visionary Records/Albany Records, and includes song cycles set to the poetry of Langston Hughes (Dream Variations) and Paul Laurence Dunbar (The Shadow of Dawn), Six Preludes for Piano Solo and a jazz quartet arrangement of “Wade in the Water.” (both cycles published by M.M.B. Music of St.Louis). In summer of 2006 he recorded, with his New York jazz group Mirage, a CD of arrangements of spirituals, “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”, which was released in February 2008 on the Arabesque label. He is currently working on a chamber opera, “The Mask in the Mirror”, based on the courtship and marriage of poet Paul Laurence Dunbar and Alice Ruth Moore.
Mr. Thompson is Associate Professor of Music at San Diego State University, where he teaches jazz performance and history, and music theory. He performs frequently in both jazz and classical concerts, as a soloist as well as with many chamber groups, including his jazz quartet, Mirage. He earned his undergraduate degree in music from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and a Masters degree from Rutgers University, where he studied jazz piano with Kenny Barron and classical piano with Theodore Lettvin. He also holds a jazz diploma from The Berklee College of Music in Boston.
|
|
|
