George
Thomson • conductor, violinist/violist, teacher
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George Thomson is the new Director of Orchestras at McNary High School in Keizer, Oregon. He was formerly Music Director of the Virtuoso Program at San Domenico School in San Anselmo, California; Artistic Director of the Marin Symphony Youth Programs and Conductor of the Marin
Symphony Youth Orchestra; and Interim Music Director of the Santa Rosa Symphony's
Young
People's Chamber Orchestra. This summer he joins the faculty of the Rocky Ridge Music Center in Estes Park, Colorado, conducting the Young Artists Seminar Orchestra in July.
Recent and upcoming performances |
| George and the Virtuoso Program THREE-PEAT at the National Orchestra Festival!
February 20, 2010 --
The Virtuoso Program Orchestra da Camera of San Domenico School,
directed by George Thomson, won the "Grand Champion" award last weekend
at this year's National Orchestra Festival, sponsored by the American
String Teachers Association. The Festival, held as part of the
Association's annual conference in Santa Clara, California, brought
together seventeen of the best Middle School, High School, and Youth
Orchestras from across the United States, chosen by taped audition, to
be evaluated by a panel of Music Educators. Judged on Technique, Tone
Quality, Intonation, Rhythm, and Interpretation, the Orchestra da
Camera received scores of 97, 98, and 99 out of a possible 100 to win
both the High School String Orchestra category and the overall "Grand
Champion" award. Judges praised the orchestra of just 20 players for
its "absolutely lovely" phrasing and its attention to nuance and the
"music that takes place in between the notes" in its renditions of
Repighi's Ancient Airs and Dances and the Shostakovich Chamber
Symphony, Op. 110a.
As Grand Champion award winners, the orchestra presented a special concert for the convention on Saturday morning, earning a standing ovation from conference attendees and students from other participating orchestras. This is the third such award for the Virtuoso Program, who were also Grand Champions at their two previous Festival appearances, in 2005 and 2008. The next Orchestra da Camera performance will be on Friday evening, May 21, in the Carol Franc Buck Hall of the Arts on the San Domenico campus in San Anselmo. For a complete schedule of solo and chamber music recitals, and more information on the Virtuoso Program, San Domenico's unique educational opportunity for high school string players, see our website or telephone the San Domenico Music Conservatory at (415)258-1921. |
George
on the cover of SB&O!
 March 19, 2008 -- This month's School Band & Orchestra Magazine features a long interview with George Thomson about San Domenico School's Virtuoso Program: San
Anselmo's San Domenico Upper School is a private, all-girl catholic
high school set in a pastoral wooded campus just outside San Francisco.
Although it is among the oldest independent schools in the state of
California, over the past few years San Domenico has been gaining
notoriety in the music world for... (read
the full interview here)
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