Shirley J. Thompson (born 1958)
Shirley J. Thompson was born in London to Jamaican parents. She grew up playing the violin and singing in choruses. She graduated with a degree in music from Liverpool University and with a degree in composition from Goldsmiths’ College. She currently teaches at the University of Westminster.
Shirley Thompson’s website describes her as a “Composer, Artistic Director, Conductor, Academic, Violinist, Film Maker.” She has composed music for orchestras, choruses, and chamber ensembles, as well as music for film and television. In recent years she has collaborated with choreographers and filmmakers to create multimedia experiences.
Here is Shirley Thompson’s 2015 theater work Sacred Mountain: Incidents in the Life of Queen Nanny of the Maroons. This is one of a series of chamber operas about heroic women, in this case the early 18th century leader of the Jamaican Maroons who led a guerilla war against British colonialists.
Quite different is Blue Iris written for solo cello but here played on a violin: