Jeff Thayer

violin

Violinist Jeff Thayer holds the Deborah Pate and John Forrest Concertmaster Chair of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra and is a founding member of the Camera Lucida chamber music ensemble at the Conrad Prebys Music Center at University of California, San Diego. He has been concertmaster of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, associate concertmaster of the North Carolina Symphony, and concertmaster of the Canton Symphony Orchestra in Ohio. He was on the violin faculty of the Music Academy of the West, where he also served as concertmaster.

Mr. Thayer is a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Eastman School of Music, and The Juilliard School’s Pre-College Division. He began violin lessons with his mother at age three, and at 14 he studied for a year at the Conservatorio Superior in Córdoba, Spain. He attended Keshet Eilon, Ernen Musikdorf, Music Academy of the West, and at Interlochen Arts Camp he was the 1992 Pennsylvania Governor Scholar.

Mr. Thayer was a laureate of the Wieniawski Violin Competition and was winner of the Tuesday Musical Club Scholarship Auditions in Akron and the Concerto Competition at the Cleveland Institute of Music. His solo appearances have included the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Jupiter Symphony, and the North Carolina Symphony, and he has performed at Interlochen and in the Pierre Monteux Festival, Grand Teton Music Festival, Astoria Music Festival, Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival, La Jolla SummerFest, Mainly Mozart Festival, Festival der Zukunft, and the Tibor Varga Festival. For more information, please visit sandiegosymphony.org.

Through a generous gift to the SDSO from Joan and Irwin Jacobs and the Jacobs Family Trust, Mr. Thayer performs on the 1708 “Bagshawe” Stradivarius.

Sponsor: Connie and Jack Bloxom