Chris P. Thompson

I compose music and play percussion. The influence of a childhood in California’s Silicon Valley of the 80s and 90s, as well as in the New York City contemporary music scene of the ‘00s and ‘10s led me to develop work that draws equally from electronic music, marching percussion, and contemporary classical music.

I released my third solo album True Stories & Rational Numbers in October 2020. A nine-movement work sequenced as electronic music but also fully scored for four keyboardists, it represents my investigation of just intonation and the natural mathematics of rhythm and harmony, my search for a performance practice to incorporate these into live contemporary music, and my personal fan-fiction about Hermann and Anna von Helmholtz. True Stories will receive its world premiere live performance at the Barbican Centre, London in November 2021.

Early 2021 brought the release of Red Folder, a collaboration with playwright Rajiv Joseph for the Steppenwolf Theater’s STEPPENWOLF NOW series.

My first two records, the LP Everything Imaginable Comes True (2019) and EP Lot Hero (2017), draw heavily on the high-energy sound world of modern drum & bugle corps while incorporating luminaries of the New York City contemporary classical music scene in both familiar and unexpected capacities.

I’ve also been member of Alarm Will Sound for the past 15 years, which has given me the opportunity to work both as a performing percussionist and arranger on a wide variety of projects.

As a Percussionist:
Long-time member of the American Contemporary Music Ensemble, toured internationally as a performer with Tyondai Braxton’s HIVE, participated in the world premieres of over a hundred new works, and can be heard on 40 studio albums. Frequent performer in the pits of many NYC Broadway show productions including The Phantom of the Opera and Wicked.

Collaborations, Appearances, Recordings:
Björk, Dirty Projectors, James McVinnie, Medeski Martin & Wood, the Metropolitan Opera, Nico Muhly, Brian Reitzell, They Might Be Giants, and Valgeir Siggurðsson.

Education: UCLA ‘01, The Juilliard School ‘03. Student of Mitchell Peters and Daniel Druckman.
Interests: Click tracks, experimental animation, graph paper, libraries, math, Japan, your dog.

Deeper dive into my world at The Fifteen Questions.
Full Discography as a composer, performer, and arranger.