Thompson

Christopher Thompson, also known as “Master Christopher”, is a multi-disciplined composer-performer who creates innovative ways to blur the distinction between genres. Through his project “Music Desegregation”, he merges contemporary art music, jazz, and percussion traditions, with notated rap. Writing for groups like Alarm Will Sound, the International Contemporary Ensemble, Bergamot Quartet, Loadbang, and the Cold Steel Drumline, he continually expounds on the porous limits of genre and seeks to bring together audiences through intercultural music.

Chris is also the 2026 winner of the San Francisco Symphony’s Michael Morgan Prize for Emerging Black Composers. Currently based in Philadelphia, PA, Chris serves as Lecturer of Music for the City University of New York at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn. Chris is also pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Music Composition at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University.

Chris is the founder and director of Motivational Arts, Performance, and Sound (M.A.P.S.), and previously taught as the director of percussion studies at High Point University. As a proud alumnus of an HBCU, Chris earned his bachelor’s degree from North Carolina A&T State University where he marched for the internationally acclaimed Blue and Gold Marching Machine. Chris also holds a master’s degree in Percussion Performance and a post-baccalaureate certificate in Jazz Studies from the University of North Carolina Greensboro School of Music.

Christopher Thompson currently serves on the board of the Alliance of Black Orchestral Percussionists, is a member of the Percussive Arts Society New Music/Research committee, and is an Endorsed Artist for Marimba One and Black Swamp Percussion.