Marcus Thompson

  • Institute Professor
  • Professor of Music
Email
bratsche@mit.edu
Office
W18-3302
Phone
(617) 253-6951

Marcus Thompson, violist, has appeared as soloist, recitalist, and in chamber music series throughout the Americas, Europe, and East Asia. He has been a soloist with the orchestras of Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, Saint Louis, the National Symphony, the Boston Pops, and the Czech National Symphony in Prague.

Thompson has performed the west coast premiere of John Harbison’s Viola Concerto with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra with the composer conducting, the Chicago premiere with the Chicago Sinfonietta, and the Boston premiere with the New England Conservatory Honors Orchestra. He has also performed Keith Jarrett’s Bridge of Light with the Atlanta Symphony and has received critical acclaim for performances of the Penderecki Viola Concerto with the MIT Symphony Orchestra in Boston, London, and the UK; for the premiere of Elena Ruehr’s viola concerto Shadow/Light with the New Orchestra of Washington; and for the premiere of Olly Wilson’s Viola Concerto with the Rochester Philharmonic. Thompson has performed Hindemith’s Viola D’Amore Concerto, Kammermusik #6, with the Philadelphia Orchestra in Saratoga, and concertos by Vivaldi at the Bravo Festival in Colorado and at Aston Magna in Great Barrington, MA.

Thompson has premiered and performed many recital and chamber works by distinguished MIT composers including Peter Child, Keeril Makan, Charles Shadle, John Harbison, and has recorded Barry Vercoe’s iconic Synapse for Viola and Computer. His recording of Concerto for Viola, Chamber Orchestra, and Percussion commissioned from composer and organist Anthony Newman in 1985 has been re-released with concertos for five other instruments by the composer. Thompson’s recordings with orchestra also include concertos by Hindemith, Bartok, Serly, and Bloch along with works by Francaix, Martin, and Jongen. Two new releases include Elena Ruehr’s Shadow/Light with the New Orchestra of Washington, and John Harbison’s Viola Concerto with BMOP.

Thompson has been a guest of the Audubon, Borromeo, Cleveland, Da Ponte, Emerson, Fine Arts, Jupiter, Lydian, Miami, Muir, Orion, Parker, Shanghai, and Vermeer String Quartets; and a frequent participant at chamber music festivals in Anchorage, Seattle, Sitka, Los Angeles, Montreal, Edmonton, Rockport (MA and ME), Rio de Janeiro, Spoleto, Amsterdam, Dubrovnik, and Okinawa. He has appeared as a frequent guest of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and on a Live from Lincoln Center telecast. He appears on recordings of chamber works with artists for the Sitka Summer Music Festival, Stichting Reizend Muziekgezelschap, and the Boston Chamber Music Society.

Born and raised in The Bronx, NYC, Thompson earned the doctorate degree at The Juilliard School. He currently lives in Boston where he is a member of the viola faculty at New England Conservatory of Music, and violist and Artistic Director of the Boston Chamber Music Society since 2009. Thompson is the founder of the MIT Chamber Music Society and of the Emerson/Harris Program for Private Study named for MIT alumni, Cherry Emerson (SM, 1941) and Ellen Harris (Associate Provost and Class of 1949 Professor of Music Emeritus).

In 1995, he was named a Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellow and Robert R. Taylor Professor of Music. In 2015, he was appointed Institute Professor. In 2022, at its 47th International Viola Congress, Thompson was awarded the American Viola Society’s Career Achievement Award in recognition of “distinguished contributions to viola performance and viola pedagogy through his influential recordings and his celebrated tenure at the New England Conservatory of Music and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, hosting the 1985 International Congress, and for advocacy and leadership on behalf of the viola.”

Related Subjects