Dr. Lee Thompson
Dr. Lee Thompson
Professor of Music and Head of Piano and Accompanying Studies
Chair of Department
Whitman College
Walla Walla, Wash 99362
(509) 527-5239
thompsld@whitman.edu
Lee D. Thompson is Professor of Music and Head of Piano and Accompanying Studies at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, where he teaches piano, accompanying, foreign language diction for singers, and courses in the history of opera. He is a co-founder of the Whitman Vocal Workshop, a prestigious two-week program of vocal study and coaching for ten outstanding young professional singers, held each June on the campus of Whitman College. He is also principal coach for the High Mesa Vocal Workshops.
Dr. Thompson has been a member of the music staff of the Santa Fe Opera since 1996 and has worked with many of the world's outstanding singers and teachers, including Ryland Davies, Greer Grimsley, Thomas Barrett, Trish McCaffery, Marlana Malas, and Nico Castell. He has toured internationally as a collaborative artist, most recently performing concerts in Vienna, London, Graz (Austria), Kunming (People's Republic of China), New York and at the famed Aldeburgh Festival in Aldeburgh, England. During the winter of 2000, Thompson was sent by the U.S. State Department as an American Cultural Specialist to serve as the principal vocal coach/pianist with the National Opera Company of Mongolia in their first-ever English language production. Upcoming concert engagements include performances in Monterey, Mexico with soprano Ana Trevino and concerts with the Zephyr Ensemble in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
A native Texan, Dr. Thompson earned is Bmus Ed and MMus at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, where he taught on the music faculty from 1977-1982. He received his Doctorate from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music in 1986. While a student at the Cincinnati Conservatory, Thompson was one of ten accompanists chosen to participate in the First International Competition for Singers and Pianists in the Hague, Netherlands. While on leave from Whitman College in 1994, Thompson taught on the music faculty at The Ohio State University.
Lee Thompson is currently preparing a CD, entitled "The Piano Music of John David Earnest," which will include Earnest's "Sonata for Piano," commissioned by Thompson and premiered in the fall of 1999.