Candida Thompson
Encyclopedia
Biography
Candida Thompson was born in Glasgow, Scotland. She has been living in Amsterdam since 1992. She studied with David Takeno at the Guildhall School of Music and DramaGuildhall School of Music and Drama
Guildhall School of Music and Drama is an independent music and dramatic arts school which was founded in 1880 in London, England. Students can pursue courses in Music, Opera, Drama and Technical Theatre Arts.-History:...
in London, where she received her soloist's graduation diploma with honour. She developed her qualities further at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada. She also participated in various national and international competitions and received several prizes.
Currently she plays a Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume violin.
Chamber Music and String Orchestras
Candida Thompson has been involved in chamber musicChamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...
and string orchestra
String orchestra
A string orchestra is an orchestra composed solely or primarily of instruments from the string family. These instruments are the violin, the viola, the cello, the double bass , the piano, the harp, and sometimes percussion...
s most of her playing life. She has directed orchestras in Scandinavia, the Netherlands and the UK. As a chamber musician, she has collaborated with musicians such as Isaac Stern
Isaac Stern
Isaac Stern was a Ukrainian-born violinist. He was renowned for his recordings and for discovering new musical talent.-Biography:Isaac Stern was born into a Jewish family in Kremenets, Ukraine. He was fourteen months old when his family moved to San Francisco...
, Bruno Giuranna
Bruno Giuranna
Bruno Giuranna is an Italian violist.According to Giuranna's website:"Bruno Giuranna, born in Milan, completed his musical studies at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome receiving his diploma in violin and viola...
, Frans Helmerson, Janine Jansen
Janine Jansen
Janine Jansen is a violinist. She began to study the violin at age 6. Her father and both her brothers are also musicians. Her mother is a classical singer and is a sister of the bass Peter Kooy...
, Julian Rachlin
Julian Rachlin
Julian Rachlin is a Lithuanian-born violinist and violist.-Background and early life:Born in Vilnius, he emigrated in 1978 with his musician parents to Austria. In 1983, he entered the Konservatorium Wien and studied violin in the Soviet tradition with Boris Kuschnir, while also receiving private...
, David Kuyken and performed at many festivals such as Kuhmo
Kuhmo
Kuhmo is a town and a municipality in Finland and is part of the Kainuu region. The municipality has a population of and covers an area of of which is water. The population density is . It has a borderline of with Russia....
(Finland), Gubbio
Gubbio
Gubbio is a town and comune in the far northeastern part of the Italian province of Perugia . It is located on the lowest slope of Mt. Ingino, a small mountain of the Apennines. See also Mount Ingino Christmas Tree.-History:...
(Italy), International Chamber Music Festival Utrecht
Utrecht
Utrecht is a city in the Netherlands.The name may also refer to:* Utrecht , of which Utrecht is the capital* Utrecht , including the city of Utrecht* Bishopric of Utrecht* Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Utrecht...
(the Netherlands) and La Musica
La Musica
La Musica is a chamber music festival located in Sarasota, Florida. Concerts are performed annually throughout the month of April at the Sarasota Opera House. Founded in 1987 by Artistic Directors Bruno Giuranna and Derek Han , the festival draws many of the world's finest performers...
(the USA).
Thompson has been a regular guest artist at La Musica Chamber Music Festival in Florida for the past 7 years collaborating with artists such as Bruno Giuranna
Bruno Giuranna
Bruno Giuranna is an Italian violist.According to Giuranna's website:"Bruno Giuranna, born in Milan, completed his musical studies at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome receiving his diploma in violin and viola...
, Joseph Silverstein
Joseph Silverstein
Joseph Silverstein is an American violinist and conductor.As a youth, Silverstein studied with his father, Bernard Silverstein, who was a public school music teacher...
, Isabelle Faust and Frans Helmerson. She appeared at the Boston Chamber music festival
Boston Chamber Music Society
The Boston Chamber Music Society is an American organization of musicians located in Boston, Massachusetts and dedicated to the performance and promotion of chamber music. The organization performs works from the Baroque era to the present day and is a member of Chamber Music America...
in July 2007 and participated in the Finnish Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival and at the Gubbio Chamber Music festival.
Solo performances
Candida Thompson performed as a soloistSolo (music)
In music, a solo is a piece or a section of a piece played or sung by a single performer...
with orchestras such as Moscow Chamber Orchestra, English String Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra, Holland Symfonia
Holland Symfonia
The Holland Symfonia is a Dutch symphony orchestra, based in Haarlem, The Netherlands. The term "Symfonia" derives from an amalgam of the Dutch word symfonie and the Italian word sinfonia...
and Camerata Nordica, one of Sweden's leading chamber orchestras. She gave solo concerts in England, Germany, Denmark, Italy, Finland, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, Florida and Hong Kong. Most recently she performed in the prestigious Saturday Matinee series at the Concertgebouw
Concertgebouw
The Concertgebouw is a concert hall in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Dutch term "concertgebouw" literally translates into English as "concert building"...
in Amsterdam.
Work with Amsterdam Sinfonietta
Candida Thompson has been Amsterdam Sinfonietta's concertmasterConcertmaster
The concertmaster/mistress is the spalla or leader, of the first violin section of an orchestra. In the UK, the term commonly used is leader...
since 1995 and its Artistic Director
Artistic director
An artistic director is the executive of an arts organization, particularly in a theatre company, that handles the organization's artistic direction. He or she is generally a producer and director, but not in the sense of a mogul, since the organization is generally a non-profit organization...
and Leader since 2003. This string orchestra
String orchestra
A string orchestra is an orchestra composed solely or primarily of instruments from the string family. These instruments are the violin, the viola, the cello, the double bass , the piano, the harp, and sometimes percussion...
of twenty-two players, founded in 1988, performs under her guidance with a strong conviction that similarly minded players are stronger as a group if each individual upholds the responsibility. In the recent past Amsterdam Sinfonietta has performed both in the Netherlands and abroad with soloists such as Murray Perahia
Murray Perahia
Murray Perahia KBE is an American concert pianist and conductor.-Early life:Murray Perahia was born in the Bronx borough of New York City to a family of Sephardi Jewish origin. According to the biography on his Mozart piano sonatas CD, his first language was Judaeo-Spanish or, Ladino. The family...
, Thomas Hampson, Maxim Vengerov
Maxim Vengerov
Maxim Alexandrovich Vengerov is a violinist, violist, and conductor who was born in the Soviet Union.-Youth:Born on 20 August 1974 in Novosibirsk, Russia, to a family with musical tradition....
, Christianne Stotijn, Martin Frost
Martin Frost
Jonas Martin Frost III is an American politician, who was the Democratic representative to the U.S. House of Representatives for Texas's 24th congressional district from 1979 to 2005.-Personal life:...
and Gidon Kremer
Gidon Kremer
Gidon Kremer is a Latvian violinist and conductor. In 1980 he left the USSR and settled in Germany.-Biography:Kremer was born in Riga to parents of German-Jewish and Latvian-Swedish origins. He began playing the violin at the age of four, receiving instruction from his father and his grandfather,...
. The orchestra also actively commissions composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
s such as HK Gruber
Heinz Karl Gruber
Heinz Karl Gruber is an Austrian composer, bass player and singer, born in Vienna on 3 January 1943 and a leading figure of the so-called Third Viennese School.-Career:...
, Aulis Sallinen
Aulis Sallinen
Aulis Sallinen is a Finnish contemporary classical music composer. He writes in a modern, though tonal and not experimental music style. He studied at the Sibelius Academy, where his teachers included Joonas Kokkonen...
, John McCabe
John McCabe (composer)
John McCabe CBE is an English composer and pianist.- Biography :John McCabe was born in Huyton, Liverpool, Merseyside. A prolific composer from an early age, he had written thirteen symphonies by the time he was eleven...
and Michel van der Aa
Michel van der Aa
Michel van der Aa is a Dutch composer of contemporary classical music.- Early years :Michel van der Aa trained as a recording engineer at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague...
.
Recordings
Thompson made a number of chamber music recordings. She released a CD “Dutch violin sonatas” together with the pianist David Kuyken. The BohemianBohemian
A Bohemian is a resident of the former Kingdom of Bohemia, either in a narrow sense as the region of Bohemia proper or in a wider meaning as the whole country, now known as the Czech Republic. The word "Bohemian" was used to denote the Czech people as well as the Czech language before the word...
Album is Thompson's most recent recording with Amsterdam Sinfonietta. As soon as released, it has been chosen by Classic FM
Classic FM (UK)
Classic FM, one of the United Kingdom's three Independent National Radio stations, broadcasts classical music in a popular and accessible style.-Overview:...
the CD of the week in the UK. This recording for Channel Classics
Channel Classics Records
Channel Classics Records is a record label from the Netherlands, specializing in classical music. The managing director and producer is C. Jared Sacks, who grew up in Boston. Sacks was schooled as a professional horn player at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the Conservatorium van Amsterdam...
combines Antonín Dvořák
Antonín Dvorák
Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...
's romantic Serenade with two surprising works from the nineteen twenties by Pavel Haas
Pavel Haas
Pavel Haas was a Czech composer who was murdered during the Holocaust. He was an exponent of Leoš Janáček's school of composition, and also utilized elements of folk music and jazz. Although his output was not large, he is notable particularly for his song cycles and string quartets.-Pre-war:Haas...
and Erwin Schulhoff
Erwin Schulhoff
Erwin Schulhoff was a Czech composer and pianist.-Life:Born in Prague of Jewish-German origin, Schulhoff was one of the brightest figures in a generation of European musicians whose successful careers were prematurely terminated by the rise of the Nazi regime in Germany...
. This repertoire combination is typical for the Amsterdam Sinfonietta's concept of programming. Their previous release of Beethoven's String Quartet, op. 135
String Quartet No. 16 (Beethoven)
The String Quartet No. 16 in F major, op. 135, by Ludwig van Beethoven was written in October 1826 and was the last substantial work he finished. Only the last movement of the Quartet op. 130, written as a replacement for the Große Fuge, was written later. It was premiered by the Schuppanzigh...
, and Walton
William Walton
Sir William Turner Walton OM was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera...
’s Sonata for Strings under Thompson's leadership was much acclaimed and chosen CD of the month in Gramophone, BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
Recording of the Week and received a 10/10 from Luister Magazine. Another recording with Amsterdam Sinfonietta were new arrangements of String quartets No. 2
String Quartet No. 2 (Shostakovich)
Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 2 in A major, Op. 68, was composed in 1944. It was premiered by the Beethoven Quartet and is dedicated to the composer Vissarion Shebalin....
and No. 4
String Quartet No. 4 (Shostakovich)
Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 4 in D major was composed in 1949. It was premiered in Moscow in 1953 and is dedicated to the memory of Pyotr Vilyams , the artist and set designer.It has four movements:# Allegretto# Andantino...
by Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
. This CD received an Opus d'or, a Best of the year disc by Audiophile Audition and 10/10 by Classics Today. As Amsterdam Simfonietta's leader, Thompson also recorded for Channel Classic Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence
Souvenir de Florence
The String Sextet in D minor "Souvenir de Florence", Op. 70, is a string sextet scored for 2 violins, 2 violas, and 2 cellos composed in the European summer of 1890 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Tchaikovsky dedicated the work to the St. Petersburg Chamber Music Society in response to his becoming an...
and Verdi's String quartet in E minor
String Quartet in E minor (Verdi)
Giuseppe Verdi's String Quartet in E minor was written in the spring of 1873 during a production of Aida in Naples. It is the only surviving chamber music work in Verdi's catalogue....
.