Program and Artist Biography

Kelly Hall-Tompkins is one of New York City’s most in-demand violinists, with a career that spans solo, chamber, and orchestral performance. In 2002 she released her debut CD recording. Hall-Tompkins released her second CD, In My Own Voice, in 2008 and was subsequently presented by Barnes and Noble Lincoln Triangle in New York and in Orlando, Florida. Her live performance broadcasts include Chicago on WFMT’s Jewel Box Series, New York and worldwide on New York City’s WNYC and BBC, and historic Trinity Church at Wall Street. She has performed at Bargemusic, live on WNYC’s Soundcheck, and at Raleigh Chamber Music Guild. Her performances in recital have been featured on several occasions on the McGraw-Hill Young Artist Showcase, broadcast in New York by WQXR.

Hall-Tompkins has been a soloist with the Dallas, Western Piedmont, Greenville, Monmouth, and Atlantic University orchestras, as well as the Chamber Orchestra of New York, the Gateways Festival Orchestra, and the Festival of the Atlantic Orchestra. In the winter of 2007, she was invited by actress Mia Farrow and conductor George Matthew to be a soloist in Carnegie Hall for a benefit for the victims of Darfur. On stage behind her was an orchestra comprised of musicians from every major orchestra in the world.

Hall-Tompkins’s distinguished orchestral career has included extensive touring in the United States and internationally with the renowned Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, including performances in Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Japan, Singapore, Scotland and a recording with countertenor Andreas Scholl. She has also performed over 150 performances as a substitute with the New York Philharmonic, under conductors including Kurt Masur, Leonard Slatkin, Andre Previn, Charles Dutoit, and Valery Gergiev. In 2007, she became the concertmaster of the Chamber Orchestra of New York ,which performed its debut concert in Carnegie’s Zankel Hall that fall with Hall-Tompkins as soloist.

A native of Greenville, South Carolina, Hall-Tompkins began her violin studies at age nine. She earned a bachelor of music degree with honors in violin performance and a minor in French from the Eastman School of Music, where she studied with Charles Castleman. While at Eastman she won the school’s prestigious Performer’s Certificate Competition and several scholarship awards from the New York Philharmonic and was invited to perform chamber music in the school’s Kilbourn concert series with members of the faculty. She earned a master’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music under the mentorship of Glenn Dicterow, concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic. While there, she was concertmaster of both school orchestras. Hall-Tompkins studies and speaks seven languages in conjunction with her active international performance career. She lives in New York City with her husband Joe and their dog Billy.

Bridget Kibbey's performances display the varied and unique abilities of the harp, from genre-bending performances ranging from baroque to folk, to collaboration with singer/songwriters, to new works commissioned from today's young composers. The New York Times wrote that Kibbey "made it seem as though her instrument has been waiting all its life to explode with the gorgeous colors and energetic figures she gets from it." 

A 2004 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient, a winner of Concert Artist Guild's 2007 International Competition, and a winner of Astrals Artists' 2003 auditions, Kibbey has been featured in Symphony, MUSO, and Harp Column magazines, and on New York's WQXR, NPR's Performance Today, WNYC's Soundcheck, and A&E's Breakfast with the Arts. 

Kibbey won the 2009 Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's Chamber Music Society Two auditions, and is performing with the society over the subsequent three seasons. Her self-released album of solo works, Love is Come Again, was named one of 2007's Top Ten Recordings by TimeOut New York. She can also be heard on Deutsche Grammophon with Dawn Upshaw on Osvaldo Golijov's Ayre and Luciano Berio's Folk Songs.
 
Kibbey has been featured as soloist with the Juilliard Symphony, the Tallahassee Symphony, the Israel Youth Philharmonic, Symphony in C, the Princeton Symphony, the Eastern Philharmonic Orchestra, America's Dream Chamber Artists, and the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra. She has appeared as an orchestral harpist with the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony, the Orchestra of St. Luke's, and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. She has appeared as soloist and chamber musician at music festivals at the Tanglewood Music Center, St. Denis (Paris), Pacific Music, Portland Chamber Music, Manchester, and Monadnock. Ms. Kibbey is a recipient of the Juilliard School Peter Mennin Prize for Musical Excellence and the Premier Prix at the International Chamber Music Competition of Arles, France (in collaboration with flutist Julietta Curenton).
 
A leader in broadening the scope and platform of her instrument, she has premiered new works by Kati Agocs, Harrison Birtwistle, Sebastian Currier, Pierre Boulez, Nathan Shields, Kaija Saariaho, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Augusta Read Thomas, an Charles Wuorinen, among others. She is the founding harpist of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) and has been a featured soloist in New York's Music at the Anthology, Sonic Boom, and Juilliard Focus! festivals.

Ms. Kibbey received both masters and bachelor of music degrees at the Juilliard School, where she studied with Nancy Allen. She is on the harp faculties of Bard Conservatory, New York University, and the Juilliard School pre-college program.