Jordan Thomas
harp (USA)
November 15 at 6 p.m.
International winner Jordan Thomas has been described as “a profoundly intelligent musician, capable of being both sensitive and powerful,” Jordan has spent his whole life performing. After starting piano lessons at age 5 and harp at age 9, he was thoroughly committed to music. Jordan joined the Keystone State Boys Choir at age 10 touring all 7 continents , being constantly exposed to musical excellence in many styles all around the globe. By the time he was in high school he was an award-winning harpist of considerable stature, winning regional and national gold medals in the NAACP ACT-SO Competitions as well as awards from the local American Harp Society competitions. Jordan appeared as soloist for multiple concerto appearances with orchestras in the tristate area, and has worked with world renowned soloist such has violist Roberto Diaz in a performance of Berlioz’s Harold in Italy. At the start of his studies at Peabody Institute of Music, he was appointed principal harpist of all the orchestras at the institution as well with regional orchestras. He also took part in masterclasses with Natalia Shamayeva, Sivan Magen Jana Bouskova, Susan Mcdonald, Judy Loman, Elizabeth Hainen and Dan Yu. By his junior year he embarked on his first multi-state solo concert tour.
Other special opportunities came in the form of winning a position of being the only harpist invited to play in the Kennedy Center Conservatory Marathon Project. Jordan would later attend the Aspen Music Festival, working with Nancy Allen and Gillian Stella Bennet. He has been featured on several professional recordings, most recently with the Keystone State Boys Choir in a performance tour of the Britten “Ceremony of Carols”, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the composer’s birth. Jordan’s performance was heralded as “stunning and elegant.”
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n the Spring of 2013 he won first place in the American Protege International Jordan Thomas Concerto Competition, and performed the third movement of the challenging Ginastera Harp Concerto in the Weill Recital Hall of Carnegie Hall in March of 2013. He was then invited to appear as a guest artist on the Composer’s Forum of the USA International Harp Competition during the summer of 2013. He presented works that made the finals of the Composition Contest that accompanies this performance competition. Jordan started his Masters in Music studies at Peabody in the fall of 2013, and continued to perform all over the Tri-State area. Jordan was selected to open the first season of Symphony No. 1 in a performance of Mozart’s Flute and Harp Concerto.
He now resides in Chicago where he attended the Chicago College of Performing Arts where he pursued a Professional Diploma in Orchestral Studies under the guide of Lyric Opera of Chicago Principal Harpist Lynn Williams, as well as Principal Harpist of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago under the tutelage of Chicago Symphony Orchestra Principal Harpist Sarah Bullen. He was personally selected to be a guest soloist for the World Harp Congress Hong Kong in a presentation of the Composition Forum along with members of the harp studio of the Peabody Institute of Music. While in Chicago, Jordan gave the world premiere of Heidi Joosten’s Appetite Concerto for Harp and Wind Symphony with the Chicago Wind Philharmonic, the first of its kind. He continues to perform both solo performances and orchestra concerts in Chicago.