Marcus Thompson, Viola

Marcus Thompson has appeared as viola soloist, recitalist and chamber music player throughout the Americas, Europe and the Far East. He has been featured as soloist with the symphony orchestras of Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Saint Louis, and the Czech National Symphony and has recorded the Bartok Viola Concerto and the Bloch Suite with the Slovenian Radio Symphony conducted by Paul Freeman. Mr. Thompson has received critical acclaim for performances of the John Harbison Viola Concerto with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and the Chicago Sinfonietta, and for performances of the Penderecki Viola Concerto in Boston and London. He has been a guest of the Audubon, Borromeo, Cleveland, Emerson, Lydian, Muir, Orion, Shanghai, and Vermeer String Quartets, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; and he is a frequent participant in chamber music festivals in Amsterdam, Anchorage, Dubrovnik, Montreal, Seattle, Sitka, Los Angeles, Okinawa, Portland and Vail.

Mr. Thompson, who is a member of the Boston Chamber Music Society, earned his doctorate degree at The Juilliard School following studies with Walter Trampler. He is an alumnus of Young Concert Artists. Born and raised in The Bronx, N.Y.C., he currently lives in Boston where, as the Robert R. Taylor Professor of Music, he founded and leads programs in chamber music and performance study at MIT, and serves on the viola faculty at New England Conservatory of Music. This is his first summer with AYO.