Marcus Thompson

Marcus Thompson has performed in chamber music series and recitals throughout the world. As a chamber musician, he has been a frequent guest of festivals and series in Amsterdam, Dubrovnik, Edmonton, Montreal, Santa Fe, Seattle, Sitka, Spoleto, Okinawa, and Rio de Janeiro. He appeared with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center at Alice Tully Hall, on tour, and in a Live from Lincoln Center broadcast, and as a guest of the Cleveland, Emerson, Jupiter, Miami, Orion, Shanghai, and Vermeer String Quartets. Mr. Thompson has been a member musician of the Boston Chamber Music Society since 1984. In 2009 he was appointed its second artistic director. As a recitalist, he has performed in series throughout the Americas, including Carnegie Recital Hall and The Metropolitan Museum in New York, The National Gallery and Terrace Theater at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Herbst Theater in San Francisco, Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis, Jordan Hall and Gardner Museum in Boston, and Teatro Nacional in the Dominican Republic. Mr. Thompson has appeared as viola and viola d’amore soloist with many of this country’s leading symphony orchestras, including the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops, The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and the Chicago Sinfonietta. Mr. Thompson recorded the Bartók Concerto with the Slovenian Radio Orchestra, and works of Serly, Jongen, and Françaix with the Czech National Symphony. In 2012 Mr. Thompson appeared as soloist with the Rochester Philharmonic premiering Olly Wilson’s Viola Concerto which was commissioned for him in 1992. In 2018 he performed as soloist in works by Vivaldi, Morton Feldman, Elena Ruehr and Vaughan Williams at MIT in observance of the fiftieth anniversary of his Boston recital debut. Earlier in 2019 Mr. Thompson performed the John Harbison Viola Concerto with BMOP under Gil Rose, and a Vivaldi Viola d’Amore Concerto at the Aston Magna Festival in Great Barrington, MA. This season he gives the Boston premiere of Harbison’s Sonata for Viola and Piano on the BCMS Series. Born and raised in the South Bronx, Mr. Thompson holds a doctorate in viola performance from The Juilliard School. He has been a member of the viola faculty at New England Conservatory for more than three decades, and professor of music at MIT for more than four decades. In June 2015 he was appointed to MIT’s highest faculty honor, becoming one of its thirteen Institute Professors.