Violin Kelly Hall-Tompkins

Winner of a Naumburg International Violin Competition Honorarium Prize, Concert Artists Guild Career Grant, Sphinx Medal of Excellence and featured in the Smithsonian Museum for African-American History, Ms. Hall-Tompkins is a trailblazing and innovative violin soloist entrepreneur who has been acclaimed by the New York Times as “the versatile violinist who makes the music come alive,” for her “tonal mastery” (BBC Music Magazine) and as New York Times “New Yorker of the Year.” A new collaboration with 5-time Emmy-winning composer Jeff Beal features a new violin concerto, Body In Motion, written for her. The collaboration also features celebrated conductor Leonard Slatkin. Ms. Hall-Tompkins and Maestro Slatkin performed the Sold-Out world premiere with the St. Louis Symphony to critical acclaim: “The world premiere was a treat even by the rarified standards of world premieres…masterful… she premiered the concerto with dynamic intensity in her SLSO debut.” Kelly Hall-Tompkins also performed the European premiere with Maestro Slatkin and the Orquesta of Gran Canaria, Spain and recorded the work with Maestro Slatkin and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra this past fall.

The first American artist to perform in China after the pandemic, Ms. Hall-Tompkins received a Chinese “Rare Talent Visa” to perform as soloist with the Shanghai Symphony. Past appearances also include as co-soloist in Carnegie Hall with Glenn Dicterow and conductor Leonard Slatkin, in London with Chineke! at Queen Elizabeth Hall with conductor Michael Morgan, Brevard Festival with Keith Lockhart, recitalist at Lincoln Center, soloist as the Inaugural Artist in Residence with the Cincinnati Symphony, and with the Symphonies of Baltimore, Madison, Dallas, Jacksonville, Oakland, Greensboro, recitals in Paris, New York, Houston, Toronto, Washington, Chicago, and festivals of Tanglewood, Ravinia, Santa Fe, Gateways, and in France, Germany and Italy.

Ms. Hall-Tompkins is a passionate champion of all 400 years of violin repertoire in the classical canon and was recently presented at the Bach Society of Houston in a recital, “Bach to Blues,” of works both with harpsichord and contemporary solo unaccompanied. At home with genres beyond classical music, Ms. Hall-Tompkins is the first soloist to perform the Wynton Marsalis Violin Concerto after the original dedicatée, with over 25 performances to date, including the Lucerne Festival premiere of the work, a small tour of across the Netherlands with the North Netherlands Symphony and conductor Garrett Keast, and opening and closing nights with the Winston Salem, Oakland Symphony, Las Vegas Philharmonic, California and Elgin Symphonies.

In additional boundary-stretching projects, she toured for 5 years with American Roots Violinist/Composer Mark O’Connor. She was “Fiddler”/Violin Soloist of the Grammy/Tony-nominated Broadway production of Fiddler on the Roof. Inspired by her experience, she commissioned and developed the first ever Fiddler solo album of all new arrangements, The Fiddler Expanding Tradition, which is featured alongside her recital in Kiev, Ukraine in the recent documentary “Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles” on the 55-year history of the musical. Since the close of the Broadway show 10 years ago, Ms. Hall-Tompkins The Fiddler Expanding Tradition is still highly sought after on tour dates around the country. Ms. Hall-Tompkins’ Imagination Project was called “groundbreaking” by STRINGS Magazine and has received over 1 million views on YouTube to date.

Actively performing virtually throughout the pandemic, numerous projects include premiering 4 pieces written for her, creating and being invited to unique collaborations, including co-composition The Gatherers with Tony-nominated actor Daniel Watts, Echo: Shostakovich in Catharsis with aerial dancer Alexandra Peter and Frisson Films, Gil Shaham’s Gilharmonic, and with WQXR as part of the inaugural Artist Propulsion Lab. As founder of Music Kitchen-Food for the Soul, Kelly Hall-Tompkins is a pioneer of social justice in classical music, bringing top artists in over 100 concerts with over 200 top artists, in homeless shelters, reaching over 30,000 clients coast to coast from New York to Los Angeles, and in internationally in Paris, France. Through Music Kitchen, Ms. Hall-Tompkins commissioned 15 award-winning composers, with support from Carnegie Hall, to set the prose feedback comments of shelter clients into a composite song cycle entitled, Forgotten Voices, premiered individually at homeless shelters around New York City, then in its entirety in a Sold-Out World Premiere in Association with Carnegie Hall in March 2022. Ms. Hall-Tompkins is on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music, recipient of two Honorary Doctorates (Manhattan School of Music and Adelphi University), Distinguished Alumni and Centennial Awards (Eastman School of Music) and is a published author contributor to Music and Human Rights on Routledge Press.