Born in Kansas City, MO, Nov 25, 1896
Died in New York, NY, Sept 30, 1989
- In addition to composing, Thomson was an influential and accessible music critic. For many years he was the chief music critic at the New York Herald Tribune.
- Thomson was educated at Harvard and also spent time in Paris in the 1920s, where he met Satie, hobnobbed with Les Six and took composition lessons with Nadia Boulanger. He also met Gertrude Stein, who became a good friend and collaborator (he set her texts multiple times, including collaborating on two operas).
- Thomson’s mature musical style combines influences from American hymns, 19th-century dance, and traditional tonality with a dash of diatonic dissonance and polytonality.1
Composer website from the Virgil Thompson Foundation
Sources
- Anthony Tommasini and Richard Jackson, “Thomson, Virgil,” Grove Music Online (July 10, 2012), accessed August 13, 2021, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-1002225674.