John Thompson short bio

John Thompson is the best-known musician giving historically informed performances of early Chinese music for the guqin silk-string zither. After a college degree in Western musicology (early music) and graduate studies in ethnomusicology, he began in 1974 to study the modern guqin tradition from Sun YüCh'in in Taiwan. Since 1976 he has focused on early repertoire, personally reconstructing over 150 melodies published in 15th and 16th century handbooks. In 1992 the National Union of Chinese Musicians invited him to Beijing as the focus of a seminar on reconstructing music from the earliest surviving guqin handbook, Shen Qi Mi Pu (1425 CE). While based in Hong Kong as artistic consultant to the Festival of Asian Arts he performed throughout East Asia, and published seven CDs of his musical reconstructions as well as four books of music transcription. Since moving to New York in 2001 he has continued to perform, research and lecture on the guqin. His website, www.silkqin.com, is the most comprehensive English-language source of information on this instrument.

"He soars beyond the ordinary world to bring the beauty of the qin to music lovers worldwide." (Xu Kuanghua, Hangzhou, 2002)
"Very elegant." (Wu Wenguang, Beijing, 2003)

Education:

The Asheville School, Asheville, N.C., 1963
Haverford College, B.A., 1967 (Musicology)
Florida State University, M.A., 1971 (Asian Studies)
University of Michigan, graduate studies in ethnomusicology and Chinese (1971 - 1974)
Mandarin Training Center, Taiwan Normal University, classical Chinese (1974 - 1976)
Private qin lessons with Sun Yü-ch'in, 1974 - 1976

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Footnotes (Shorthand references are explained on a separate page)

1 The biography above has 180 words. Here are two shorter versions:

100 words

John Thompson is the best-known performer of early music for the Chinese guqin silk string zither, since 1976 personally reconstructing over 150 melodies from 15th and 16th century guqin handbooks. From 1980 to 2000, while serving as artistic consultant to the Festival of Asian Arts in Hong Kong, he performed throughout East Asia and published seven CDs of his musical reconstructions as well as four books of music transcriptions. Since moving to the New York area in 2001 he has continued to perform, research and lecture. His website, www.silkqin.com, is the most comprehensive source of information on the subject.

50 words:

John Thompson is the best-known performer of early music for the Chinese guqin silk string zither. He has published seven CDs of his reconstructions from 15th and 16th century guqin handbooks and given numerous solo performances worldwide. His website, www.silkqin.com, is the most comprehensive source of information on this subject.
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