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The Scottish violinst, Candida (Candy) Thompson, studied with the renowned pedagogue David Takeno at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where she obtained her soloist diploma with distinction. She continued her studies at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada. Subsequently she won various prizes at competitions, including the Internationale Jeunesses Musicales in Belgrade.
Candida Thompson has appeared as a soloist with various orchestras in Europe, the USA and East Asia, including the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Wiener Symphoniker, Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, English String Orchestra, Amsterdam Sinfonietta and Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic. She is a passionate chamber musician. She has performed with musicians including Isaac Stern, Janine Jansen, Julian Rachlin, Isabelle Faust and Bruno Giuranna. She founded the Hamlet Piano Trio together with the cellist Xenia Jancovic and pianist Paolo Giacometti. She has regularly been invited to perform at the Kuhmo Festival in Finland, La Musica in the United States and the Utrecht International Chamber music festival and has been a guest at the Canossa Masterclasses in Reggio Emilia, the Gubbio Festival in Italy and the Ernen Chamber Music Festival in Switzerland.
From an early age Candida Thompson was already leading chamber orchestras in Scandinavia, Spain, the Netherlands and Great Britain. She has been concert-master of Amsterdam Sinfonietta since 1995, as well as its artistic director since 2003. In leading an orchestra project she places high value on the individual input of all the orchestra members. Her musical approach elicits complete involvement and maximum dedication from the musicians. Under her leadership Amsterdam Sinfonietta has recorded nine CD's to date. The very first "Verdi Tchaikovsky" recording was immediately voted ‘Editor’s Choice’ by the leading music magazine The Gramophone. The following ‘Beethoven Walton’ CD was even proclaimed The Gramophone’s ‘Disc of the Month’. The Dutch daily newspaper NRC described "The Mahler Album" (2011) as ‘hyper-Mahlerian and superbly performed.’ The "Britten" CD (2012) was enthusiastically reviewed by the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant: ‘In Britten’s Variations on a theme of Frank Bridge Amsterdam Sinfonietta emphatically demonstrated why a specialised string orchestra is indispensible to the music scene. The range of colours is truly astounding (…)’. The group’s latest CD is "The Argentinian Album", featuring Candida Thompson in Piazzolla's four seasons and also includes Ginastera’s masterpiece for string orchestra, Concerto for strings. June 2018 sees the release of Béla Bartók's divertimento and the Johannes Brahms' quintet, a continuation of Amsterdam Sinfonietta’s collaboration with Channel Classics.
Candida Thompson is also a member of the Hamlet piano trio, together with Paolo Giacometti and Xenia Jankovic, 2015 saw the release of the two Felix Mendelssohn piano trios for Channel Classics and their debut in the USA. In 2017 they released a cd of two L.v. Beethoven piano trios on original instruments and May 2018 saw their successful debut concert at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
Candida Thompson has been living in Amsterdam since 1992 and plays on a Guarneri del Gesù violin rom a private collector. |
