Kingsborough Music Lecturer Christopher L. Thompson

Genre-blending composer and percussionist to premiere world’s first concerto for notated rap and orchestra during internationally acclaimed symphony’s 2027-2028 season 

Kingsborough Community College music lecturer Christopher L. Thompson has been awarded the San Francisco Symphony’s Emerging Black Composers Project (EBCP) Michael Morgan Prize.  

The prize, established in 2020, is named in honor of the late maestro who served as the first chair and co-founder of the EBCP prior to his passing in 2021. Its aim is to spotlight early-career Black American composers and their music. 

As part of the award, the San Francisco Symphony will perform the world premiere of Thompson’s commissioned work—the first-ever concerto for notated rap and orchestra—during its 2027-2028 season at Davies Symphony Hall.  

In addition to the premiere, Thompson, who performs professionally as “Master Christopher,” will receive a $15,000 commissioning fee, mentorship from EBCP committee members, and resources to workshop his piece with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, a supporting partner of the program. 

“This has been a dream of mine for quite a while,” Thompson said about winning the award. “I’m excited to get to work and to show the world what can happen with rap notation.”  

Rap notation, Thompson said, is a form of musical composition in which the spoken lyric is treated like any other instrument in a score.  

“A lot of times, especially in hip hop today, the beat is made first and the rap is added to it,” he said. “I wanted to create a work where the rhythm, delivery, and even inflexion of the lyrics is composed simultaneously with the other instruments. A work that still feels like classical music, that also feels like rap; where the music is not an accompaniment, not background, but where there is equal dialogue between the rapper and the music.” 

A former drum captain of the storied Cold Steel Drumline at North Carolina A&T State University, home to one of the top HBCU marching bands in the country, Thompson was a percussion professor at High Point University when he turned to composition and rap notation in 2020. It was his way of responding to the continuing racial injustice laid bare bythe murder of George Floyd, he said. 

“I wanted to have a voice and do something about the issues of representation within classical music, so I decided to start with things that were genuine to me,” he said. “I’ve always thought the biggest problem with music is that it is too segregated by genre; that we’re not learning enough from each other and missing out on the creative potential of breaking down those borders, so I wanted to create music that addressed that problem.”  

The result? A genre-defying blend of classical, hip hop, jazz, and marching band featured on his full-length album, Music Desegregation, and in collaborations with multiple artists, including Grammy-winning chamber orchestra Alarm Will Sound, and now, the San Francisco Symphony’s EBCP award, allowing Thompson to mount his most ambitious work yet—the first known concerto for notated rap and orchestra.  

Though rap has appeared in orchestral works before, such as Gregory Walker’s 1993 rap symphony, Dream N. the Hood, Thompson’s commission is different, he said, because it is a full concerto in which the rap is notated as part of the score.  

“I’m thrilled that the Emerging Black Composers Project can help bring Christopher Thompson’s piece to life,” said the Conservatory’s Music Director Edwin Outwater in a release. “Based on his submitted work, and his plans for his San Francisco Symphony premiere, I can confidently say that we will be hearing something totally original and new.”  

Thompson’s recognition by the San Francisco Symphony reflects the depth of talent and creativity among Kingsborough’s faculty, said Kingsborough President Suri Duitch.  

“We are thrilled to celebrate this extraordinary recognition and proud to support faculty whose work challenges convention, inspires students and earns recognition on the national stage,” she said. “We look forward to seeing his groundbreaking work brought to life by the San Francisco Symphony.”      

Thompson offered a glimpse of what audiences can expect.   

“I can tell you that the piece starts off high energy and will be unlike anything you’ve heard from a rap song before,” he said.  

For those who don’t want to wait for the East Coast premiere of Thompson’s San Francisco Symphony-commissioned work, he is currently composing the score for the Beth Morrison Projects-produced The Slaying of Innocence, a music-theatre work on the U.S. prison industrial complex expected to premiere in Boston in 2027, though a New York run is also expected.  

“I have the unique opportunity of introducing students to vast and new musical styles of music,” he said, “and the opportunity to expose them to new cultures and potentially create new fans of this music by the way I expose them.”  

Cally said it’s this approach that makes Thompson an exceptional addition to the College’s teaching staff. 

“Chris is the exact kind of person you want as an example for our students,” Cally said, “and having someone at the national forefront of this emerging art form is really an extraordinary honor for the college. He’s an excellent faculty member.” 

Read more about Chris Thompson being awarded the San Francisco Symphony’s Emerging Black Composers Project Michael Morgan Prize in The San Francisco Chronicle (login required), NPR station KQED, The Violin Channel, and BK Reader.