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The American tenor and historic harpist, Christopher Preston Thompson, is focused on Early music and New music. He is the Executive Director of The Broken Consort and the founding Artistic Director of Medieval ensemble, Concordian Dawn, and has performed as soloist in venues throughout the USA, including New York City's Carnegie Hall. Credits include performances with Gotham Early Music Scene, Toby Twining Music, Pomerium, Grand Harmonie, Houston Early Music Festival, Arizona Early Music Society, Tucson Desert Song Festival, Encompass New Opera Theater, On Site Opera, Underworld Production Opera, among others.
With a “mystical harp and a beautiful voice”, Christopher Preston Thompson has “enchanted” audiences (The Epoch Times) in New York City and beyond. Described by Opera News as a “versatile, funny, game and attractive…obviously well-trained singer”, he ranges in experience as singer, actor, and historic harp player, with specific focus on Early Music and New Music.
For a recent performance with Toby Twining Music, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported that Christopher Preston Thompson “had an amazing vocal and rhythmic command that helped create some of the most other-worldly and percussive effects…remarkable.” New York Concert Review deemed his performance in the title role of Benjamin Britten’s The Prodigal Son as “superb”, hailing him “a fine singing-actor…singing with dramatic intensity, great sound and crystal-clear diction”. For his recent recreation of the epic tale, Nibelungenlied with The Broken Consort, the Boston Musical Intelligencer reported that “Christopher Preston Thompson with harp in hand, delivered 14 stanzas in Medieval German with great outward passion, the words themselves made biting, piercing.” And, most recently, he was praised by Classical Voice North Carolina for a “stylish and delicate” French Baroque performance during a concert spanning 900 years of repertoire, noting “Thompson’s liquid and transparent voice is perfect for this type of music, with its complicated melody and ornamented phrases. Thompson’s diction is as clear as a bell, and he easily distinguishes between trills and vibrato.” The article went on to describe his versatility, saying “Thompson flipped a figurative switch and sang in a perfect cabaret style for three songs..from Jacques Brel’s Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris. There could not be a much more difficult set of transitions for a singer than from langue d’oïl to lenga d’òc to 18th-century French, German, and English, and then to the particular style of Broadway; Thompson pulled it all off beautifully.”
Credits include Gotham Early Music Scene’s production of Medieval musical drama The Play of Daniel, Vancouver Early Music Festival’s The Unknown ‘Carmina Burana’ with Sequentia, On Site Opera’s Pygmalion (Pygmalion cover), concerts with Pomerium, Toby Twining Music, The Broken Consort, Concordian Dawn (founding Artistic Director), New York Virtuoso Singers, the world premiere of multiple Grammy nominee, David Chesky’s new opera, The Pig, the Farmer, and the Artist in the role of the Artist, Underworld Production Opera’s Il Trionfo dell’Onore in the role of Flaminio, a solo concert entitled Un Mélange de Paris et New York on the Atelier Concert Series at the American Church in Paris premiering Five Songs on Texts by Fauset and Grimké by Laura Kaminsky, which he also premiered in NYC at Symphony Space in the Spring of 2013, the Church of the Transfiguration’s productions of B. Britten’s Curlew River as the Madwoman and The Burning Fiery Furnace as Misael, roles with Encompass New Opera Theatre (Anton, The Theory of Everything), the Bronx Opera Company (Remendado in Georges Bizet's Carmen; Mercury in Orpheus in the Underworld), dell’Arte Opera Ensemble (Snout in B. Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Basilio/Curzio in W.A. Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro), Great River Shakespeare Festival (title role in Cymbeline), and Nicu’s Spoon Theatre (Prince Edward/Lord Stanley in Richard III), and resident positions with the Marble Choir and The Good Pennyworths.Christopher has also been seen in ABC broadcasts of Hope Is Born! and Rachael Ray’s Battle of the Carolers, and he can be heard on the Marble Choir’s recently released album, "it’s about love". He currently lives in New York City. |
