Robert F. Thompson, D.M.A.

Interim Dean, Conservatory of Music
Associate Professor of Arts Management

Phone: (914) 251-6707
Fax: (914) 251-6739
Email: dr.robert.thompson@purchase.edu

Dr. Robert Thompson is a noted producer, conductor, publisher, writer, and musician. The recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts awards, Thompson previously served as professor of music at Hope College and The University of Kentucky, where he taught jazz studies and trumpet. While in Vienna, Thompson was on the faculty of the Austro-American Institute for Education, where he taught conducting, music theory, and history. (See below for extended profile.)

Education

• M.M., D.M.A., Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester
• B.A., M.M., University of South Florida

Profile
From 1997 through 2007, Robert Thompson was the chief executive officer and president of Universal Edition, one of the world’s largest classical music publishing companies with offices in Vienna, London, and New York and home to such composers as Béla Bartók, Alban Berg, Luciano Berio, Pierre Boulez, Arvo Pärt, Arnold Schönberg, and Kurt Weill. During his tenure, Thompson expanded the operations of Universal into film and production and was credited in the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians for having spearheaded the acquisition of new composers and opening the company’s first office in the United States.

Thompson produced the Grammy-nominated recording Allegresse by composer Maria Schneider for ENJA Records and served as music consultant to the Johnny Depp-Cate Blanchett film, The Man Who Cried, for Universal Pictures. He has been increasingly successful in placing contemporary classical music, including the music of Arvo Pärt, in such major motion pictures as Fahrenheit 911, The Insider, Swept Away, and Heaven. He produced and performed in the world premiere of Osvaldo Golijov’s La Pasión Según San Marcos (“a magnificent triumph of Latin-American music” …The Los Angeles Times), for which the live recording also received a Grammy nomination, and launched and produced the first U.S. tour of the work in 2002. Thompson worked extensively with The Kronos Quartet and Nonesuch Records in producing their Grammy-winning recording of Alban Berg’s The Lyric Suite. He has continued to produce live concerts throughout the U.S. and Europe, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Tanglewood Music Festival, Ravinia Festival, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

As a conductor, Thompson has conducted the Chicago, Seattle, Detroit, Houston, and Phoenix Symphonies. He made his debut at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago in 2007. He is the founder and producer of The Baseball Music Project, a series of multimedia orchestral concerts presented in association with the National Baseball Hall of Fame with Hall-of-Famer Dave Winfield as host and narrator. In conjunction with The Baseball Hall of Fame, Thompson hosted the XM Radio program Voices of the Game with Grammy, Emmy, and Academy Award winner Randy Newman as Thompson’s guest.

An acclaimed trumpet player, Thompson has performed with the Four Tops, Temptations, Moody Blues, Cab Calloway, Grand Rapids Symphony, Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, and numerous touring Broadway shows, including Fiddler on the Roof, A Chorus Line, Grand Hotel, and Secret Garden. Thompson was a founding member of Rhythm & Brass, a brass and percussion ensemble that was sponsored by Yamaha and toured throughout the U.S. and Japan. He recorded two albums for D’Note Records with Rhythm & Brass, along with his own solo album, Parallels, with guitarist Gene Bertoncini for Mark Records.

Thompson is a voting member of NARAS (The Grammys) and first vice-president of The Music Publisher’s Association of America, and serves on committees at both ASCAP and BMI. He has also served as a Kauffman advisor to the University of Rochester, where he worked with students under the Eastman School of Music’s Institute for Music Leadership program, chairing the Institute’s Entrepreneurship in Music program. In 2005, Thompson was awarded the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of South Florida in Tampa.