Jeff Thayer

About Jeff

Violinist Jeff Thayer holds the Deborah Pate and John Forrest Concertmaster Chair of the San Diego Symphony. Thayer is also a founding member of the Camera Lucida chamber music ensemble, in residence at UCSD's Conrad Prebys Music Center.

He is a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Eastman School of Music and the Juilliard School's Pre-College Division. Thayer began violin lessons at the age of three, and at 14 studied for a year at the Conservatorio Superior in Cordoba, Spain.

He has appeared as soloist with the San Diego Symphony, 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.

Thayer's awards include the Stephen Hahn/Lillybelle Foundation Award in Violin from the Music Academy of the West, the Starling Foundation Award, the George Eastman Scholarship and the Performer's Certificate from the Eastman School of Music. Through a generous loan from Joan and Irwin Jacobs and the Jacobs' Family Trust, Thayer plays on the 1708 "Sir Bagshawe" Stradivarius.