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1812 TCHAIKOVSKY SPECTACULAR!
A Bridgepoint Education Summer Pops Concert - SUBSCRIBE NOW!
September 2, 3, 4

Matthew Garbutt, conductor
Jeff Thayer, violin
Navy Band Southwest

We’re going out with a bang! It’s our spectacular, crowd-pleasing season finale: Tchaikovsky’s thunderous 1812 Overture complete with booming cannons over San Diego Bay. In a dramatic addition,  Concertmaster Jeff Thayer will be stepping in for ailing pianist Chu-Fang Huang to perform the first movement of the thrilling Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto.  Also to be performed: March Slave and a suite from Swan Lake! Close out your summer with the ultimate Summer Pops experience!

Concertmaster Jeff Thayer has graciously agreed to perform this weekend in place of pianist Chu-Fang Huang, who is ill. He will perform the first movement of the Violin Concerto by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Violinist Jeff Thayer holds the Deborah Pate and John Forrest Concertmaster Chair of the San Diego Symphony. He is also concertmaster and faculty member of the Music Academy of the West (Santa Barbara). Previous positions include assistant concertmaster of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, associate concertmaster of the North Carolina Symphony, and concertmaster of the Canton (OH) Symphony Orchestra.  He is a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Eastman School of Music, and the Juilliard School’s Pre-College Division.  His teachers include William Preucil, Donald Weilerstein, Zvi Zeitlin, and Dorothy DeLay. 

A native of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, Mr. Thayer began violin lessons with his mother at the age of three.  At fourteen, he went to study at the Conservatorio Superior in Cordoba, Spain.  He has appeared as soloist with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Jupiter Symphony, the North Carolina Symphony, the Canton Symphony Orchestra, the Pierre Monteux School Festival Orchestra, the Spartanburg Philharmonic, the Cleveland Institute of Music Symphony Orchestra, The Music Academy of the West Festival Orchestra, the Williamsport Symphony Orchestra, the Nittany Valley Symphony Orchestra, and the Conservatory Orchestra of Cordoba, among others.  He attended Keshet Eilon (Israel), Ernen Musikdorf (Switzerland), Music Academy of the West, Aspen, New York String Orchestra Seminar, the Quartet Program, and as the 1992 Pennsylvania Governor Scholar, Interlochen Arts Camp.  Other festivals include the Mainly Mozart Festival (San Diego), Festival der Zukunft, and the Tibor Varga Festival (Switzerland). 

Through the generosity of Joan and Irwin Jacobs and the Jacobs' Family Trust, the "Sir Bagshawe" Stradivarius dated 1708, is on loan to the San Diego Symphony for use by its concertmaster, Jeff Thayer.