Robert Thompson Piano
"Robert Thompson…. made something of everything; he was poetic and also sensitive to his colleagues and invested all that he played with meaning."
Biography
A consummate musician, Robert is equally at home as soloist and chamber musician. Recent engagements included appearances as soloist at Wigmore Hall, Bridgewater Hall, the Leeds and Nottingham International Piano Series, and chamber music performances at Wigmore Hall, The Sage Gateshead , Hong Kong and South Korea.
As a chamber musician Robert regularly collaborates with instrumentalists including cellist Philip Higham, violinists Benjamin Baker, Thomas Gould and Bartosz Woroch, trombonist Peter Moore and the Heath Quartet. In 2014 he recorded music by Strauss and Beethoven for Champs Hill Records with Benjamin Baker.
Between 2003-2013 Robert was a member of the Rhodes Piano Trio. The Trio was selected by YCAT in 2010 and in July 2011 won 2nd Prize in the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition. They went on to give recitals at Wigmore Hall, Barbican, the Louvre, Aldeburgh, Verbier, Aix-en-Provence, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Schwetzinger Festivals. In 2012 they were fellows at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and resident ensemble as part of the Ones to Watch series at Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music in Singapore.
Robert studied at Chetham’s School of Music and at the Royal Northern College of Music. In 2010 he completed his Master’s with Peter Frankl at Yale University where he received the Charles S. Miller prize for outstanding work. He has taken part in masterclasses in Appeldorn (Holland), the Britten-Pears School Aldeburgh, Verbier, Aix en Provence and IMS Prussia Cove, and worked with Andras Schiff, Stephen Hough, Charles Rosen amongst others, and enjoyed intensive Chamber Music coaching from Mitsuko Uchida, Menahem Pressler, Alasdair Tait, Ferenc Rados, Ian Brown and Gabor Takacs-Nagy.
He has performed widely as a concerto soloist in repertoire ranging from Mozart to Shostakovich, regularly taken part in the Lake District Summer Music Festival as Rising Star, and given recitals at venues and festivals across the UK.
Robert is Assistant Director of Music (Performance) & Head of Keyboard at Christ's Hospital School.
Reviews
Robert Thompson began with a lightly textured account of Schumann’s early collection of twelve character pieces, Papillons, and successfully captured the mysterious nature of these brief but poignant utterances. There was a nice sense of give and take in the opening waltz, the octaves crisp and clear, while the sixth piece, also a waltz, showed Thompson could be more authoritative if required …..Thompson kept a nice playful sense of humour running through the performance, with subtle rubato applied instinctively.
CLASSICAL SOURCE, WIGMORE HALL
Robert Thompson…. made something of everything; he was poetic and also sensitive to his colleagues and invested all that he played with meaning.
CLASSICAL SOURCE, BARBICAN
Contact
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