JOEL THOMPSON
COMPOSER, CONDUCTOR, PIANIST
“Thompson’s music is alive and inquisitive, in constant dialogue with itself and the text. He pays close attention to compositional craft, without wasted effort.”
Photo credit: Rachel Summer Cheong
Joel Thompson is a composer, conductor, pianist, and educator whose works aim to prioritize community and facilitate connection, while creating music that is “alive and inquisitive, in constant dialogue” (Arts ATL) and “one of the most attractive things one has heard” (New York Classical Review). His work is both powerful and incisive in centering the concerns and desires of the voiceless and historically marginalized. Thompson currently serves as Houston Grand Opera’s first ever full-time Composer-in-Residence, holding a five-year residency that commenced in 2022.
Thompson’s career honors include the 2023 Sphinx Medal of Excellence; a 2018 American Prize for his well-known choral work, Seven Last Words of the Unarmed; and the 2017 Hermitage Prize – an honor bestowed by the Hermitage Artist Retreat. Thompson draws inspiration from artists who transcend labels and have a clear sense of identity, such as Nina Simone, Esperanza Spalding, and Cécile McLorin Salvant.
Thompson has been commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Aspen Music Festival, Bravo! Vail Music Festival, Houston Grand Opera, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Atlanta Master Chorale, San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, Kansas City Symphony, American Composers Forum, Sphinx Organization’s EXIGENCE Vocal Ensemble (of which he is a founding member), amongst others.
Recent commissions include Dove Songs, written for and performed by soprano Renée Richardson, which premiered at Houston Grand Opera in March 2024; To See the Sky, premiered in the same month by Jaap van Zweden and the New York Philharmonic and co-commissioned by the American Composers Forum, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Aspen Music Festival, and Bravo! Vail Music Festival, which had its world premiere at the New York Philharmonic in March 2024; and Fire and Blue Sky, commissioned and premiered by LA Opera in June 2024 under the baton of Resident Conductor Lina González-Granados, featuring a libretto by Imani Tolliver.
Thompson was commissioned by Houston Grand Opera to create an operatic adaptation of Ezra Jack Keats’ illustrated children’s story, The Snowy Day, which has been long celebrated as one of the first mainstream children’s books to prominently feature a Black protagonist. In 2020, Thompson partnered with children’s author Andrea Davis Pinkney to bring The Snowy Day, which won a Caldecott Medal, to the operatic stage. Thompson and Pinkney worked to recreate the book’s sense of enchantment in an operatic format that is now staged nationally.
Well known for the choral work Seven Last Words of the Unarmed, which premiered at the University of Michigan Men’s Glee Club under the direction of Eugene Rogers in November 2015, Thompson has received several accolades for the piece including the 2018 American Prize for Choral Composition and the Craft Specialty-Musical Composition/Arrangement EMMY® at The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (Michigan Chapter) 39th EMMY® Award Ceremony. Seven Last Words of the Unarmed contains seven movements, each setting to music the last words of an unarmed Black man before he was killed.
Other notable work includes My Dungeon Shook (2020), which was inspired by the words of the celebrated author and civil rights activist James Baldwin. A second work amplifying Baldwin’s words, To Awaken the Sleeper for orchestra and orator, premiered at the Colorado Music Festival in 2021. Nine American orchestras signed on as co-commissioners for To Awaken the Sleeper, and a host of other orchestras have performed it since its premiere.
Thompson holds a B.A. in Music and M.M. in Choral Conducting, both from Emory University, and is currently working towards his D.M.A. in composition from the Yale School of Music, where he studies with Christopher Theofanidis. Thompson served as Director of Choral Studies and Assistant Professor of Music at Andrew College from 2013 to 2015 and taught at Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School from 2015 to 2017. He was a post-graduate fellow at Arizona State University’s Ensemble Lab/Projecting All Voices Initiative and a composition fellow at the 2017 Aspen Music Festival and School, where he studied with composers Stephen Hartke and Christopher Theofanidis. Prominent teachers include Eric Nelson, William Ransom, Laura Gordy, Richard Prior, John Anthony Lennon, Kevin Puts, Robert Aldridge, and Scott Stewart. Thompson is an alumnus of the Metropolitan Opera/Lincoln Center Theater New Works commissioning program, established to foster leading talents in the field.
Thompson was born in the Bahamas to Jamaican parents before the family moved to Atlanta. Thompson is currently based in Houston for his composer-in-residence with Houston Grand Opera.
“The piece itself is just so emotional and raw.”
“Thompson’s score was lush and moving, but also stormy with Ivesian collages of patriotic anthems.”
“Thompson’s score often wraps the audience in a warm hug.”
“It had my heart beating because it was so dramatic.”
“Pinkney and Thompson’s collaboration arrives at an exciting moment for opera, as diverse talent finally enters the stage.”
"Magical, with elements of Bach, gospel and even Rachmaninoff in its challenging rhythms and rich harmonies.”
“Thompson has really spent time thinking deeply about music making and is able to convey ‘what he is doing and why he is doing it’ thoughtfully and eloquently.”
“Thompson and his cohort are continuing a legacy of Atlanta-centric Black concert music.”
“Stands out among the young composers.”
“The music and the text will move you profoundly and the production will delight you and make you smile from ear to ear.”