GSO Violinist Goes with the Bow
Greenville News, Arts and Travel Section | Sunday, November 17, 2002
As a child living in Greenville, violinist Kelly Hall-Tompkins wanted to follow in her mother’s footsteps and work with computers, she says in a recent phone interview. Instead, the vivacious 31-year-old lives in New York, plays in the first violin section of the New Jersey Symphony, tours all over the world with the famed Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and does solo gigs as time permits. That’s not to mention she recently produced her first CD, which is selling briskly from New York to Greenville. Ah Greenville. It’s her touchstone. It’s here where Hall-Tompkins grew up, and from where she set out to make a name in the larger musical world. Her mother, Patricia Johnson, a systems engineer, brought them to town in 1977 as a career move. The future violinist was 6 at the time. Johnson says her daughter’s musical career was totally self-motivated. “I just stepped back and supported Kelly. I did not want to influence what she was doing.” Johnson recalls Greenville as a small town rich in the arts, especially in music. “My daughter had everything she needed to help her progress.” Hall-Tompkins says she was 9 when she first picked up a violin and felt “how natural it felt in my hands.” It felt as natural as the reasons she fell in love with classical music, she says. One reason is less obvious than the other. The obvious one has to do with growing up Lutheran. You hear a lot of Bach fugues in the church, she says. It’s tradition. In Greenville, she and her mom attended the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd where at an early age Hall-Tompkins fell for Baroque music. The less obvious influence was old Warner Bros. cartoons which featured classical music. There were other influences as well. The Greenville Symphony’s elementary school program inspired her to learn to play the violin, “but I did not know just exactly what that meant.” No problem. Grace Huff, whom Hall-Tompkins calls “a wonderful teacher of mine at Summit Drive Elementary,” showed her. Huff inspired her and the other children to strive for quality. One of the violinists Greenville Friends, Peace Center Group and Corporate sales manager Kim Cochran-Price, recalls Hall-Tompkins at a later date in life. “We went to middle and high school together,” Cochran-Price says. “Even in middle school we knew she would be someone who would become a famous violinist. She was a star even then, because she was determined. There were many who stepped in to guide Hall-Tompkins career. Among them was Robert Chesebro, Furman music professor, GSO’s first clarinet, and in 1986, Carlolina Youth Symphony’s artistic director. “I had her in my orchestra a number of years,” he says. “She was a brilliant player.” Chesebro- whom the violinist calls one of her mentors- says her CD is wonderful. “When you listen to that CD you know you’ve got an incredibly fine soloist there,” he says. “I am hoping we can get her to come and solo with the Greenville Symphony.” Other linchpins in her musical life were faculty members of the Greenville County School Systems’ Fine Arts Center. “That institution was a real turning point in my musical career,” she says. “I don’t know of many other institutions in this nation quite like it, where high school students are coached in chamber music every day of the week.” Under the tutelage of Lenny Schrantz, Fine Arts Center faculty violist, and Eastman School of Music alumni, Hall-Tompkins was encouraged to consider Eastman for undergraduate work. Before Hall-Tompkins entered Eastman (her mom and a few scholarships paid tuition), she needed a new violin. At someone’s suggestion she asked for help from Arthur Magill- local textile magnate- and his wife Holly, heavy-hitter arts supporters. Their answer came soon: “Come over and let us hear you play.” She got her violin. Graduate school followed at the Manhattan School of Music. There, she studied with the New York Philharmonic’s famed first violin, Glenn Dicterow. Then she competed and won the right to guest perform with the New York Philharmonic under the baton of the world renowned Kurt Mazur. “At age 22,” she says, “I played under Mazur’s nose.” “Fortune assists the bold,” said the Roman poet Virgil, and Hall-Tompkins knows what he meant. Over the next several years she played with the New York Philharmonic more than 200 performances and built her string cache under such conductors as Valery Gergiev, Charles Dutoit and Leonard Slatkin.” Her current boss, New Jersey Symphony executive director and CEO Larry Tamburri says she lives her goal and calls her “an exceptionally gifted musician and a committed human being.” Hall-Tompkins drives herself towards the goals she sets. “My primary role model in life is my mom. She instilled in me from very early to accept and expect nothing but the best of myself in whatever I chose to pursue.” The CD is a very big part of fulfilling that desire. Years ago, she happened upon the Kodaly Duo for Violin and Cello (Zoltan, 1882-1967), at the Lincoln Center Library and was “simply blown away. I knew from that moment that I wanted to play it,” she says. That’s the first cut on her CD. She’s accompanied by cellist Troy Stuart. Two other Hall-Tompkins favorites she’s performed over the years complete the selections: Johannes Brahms’ Sonata No. 3 in D minor for Violin and Piano, and Maurice Ravel’s “Tzigan.” The piano accompaniment is by Craig Ketter. “I thought these three pieces would really show who I am as a player,” she says. Funds to make the CD came from a “personal development grant” program through the Mellon Foundation, made available to New Jersey Symphony members. It takes a tremendous amount of footwork to get 1,100 CD’s into record stores, she groans. “You must appeal to the individual buyers for each location (store).” Fortunately, she had good responses, mainly with Tower Records in New York City, Amazon.com and Horizon Records in Greenville. Horizon’s owner, Gene Berger, says. “It’s a wonderful disc. We have sold it nicely.” Berger says Hall-Tompkins’ playing puts her in the company of some other very serious performances. “I mean, there’s a Nigel Kennedy/ Lyn Harrell performance of the Kodaly Duo on EMI. “I think this disc holds up to that very nicely.” Carl Schiebler, personnel manager of the New York Philharmonic, says, “I listened to it- it sounds terrific.” Sounding terrific in foreign languages is another goal of hers. Currently she’s mastering French, German, Italian and Japanese. “It is what I do in my spare time,” she says. “Languages are my second passion next to music.” With a bright future ahead, Hall-Tompkins says she sees herself going “always forward, always upward, never limiting myself.”