“I grew up in quite a silent household with hereditary hearing impairment in my familial genes. When I heard music for the first time, it was an unalloyed revelation and left an indelible impression. It was like someone accustomed to viewing black-and-white television flicking a switch and suddenly seeing a thousand-foot technicolor cyclorama wrapped around them,” recalls Prof. Kevin (Kit) Thompson, an eminent musician and newly-appointed college master at UM, about his unforgettable initial introduction to music.
“Macao is a city of work and leisure”
After that first unforgettable experience with music in his childhood, Kit threw himself wholeheartedly into the world of music and has never looked back. He received his PhD degree in music in 1983, and an OBE and French Knighthood more recently. In 1988 he became founding principal of Birmingham Conservatoire, and in 1993 director of Dartington College of Arts. In 2004 he was appointed director of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, and this July he acceded to UM’ s appointment as college master. Recalling his first visit to Macao with his wife in 2004, Prof. Thompson says that even before he came, he had already known Macao from a 1938 poem by W. H. Auden, and a 1959 piece by Ian Fleming. Now that he’s back he is impressed by the cultural richness and diversity of Macao, as well as the overwhelming kindness and consideration of the people here. “My wife and I have discovered a genuine concern for people of all kinds, all ages and all walks of life. In practically every park there is a place where elderly people can exercise, which is fantastic,” Prof. Thompson enthuses. “It’s a kind place. Hong Kong is a great city of work. Macao is a city of work and leisure. There is some balance and a sense of equilibrium in the lifestyle of the people here.”
“Teacher is a badge which I wear with pride”
Prof. Thompson is grateful that when he discovered music, he had a very charismatic music teacher, who took him under her wing and with whom he still keeps in touch even today. “I’ve never forgotten the early influence of some truly unstinting people, schoolmasters, and later academics being not only enormously kind but so generously putting high-quality formative experiences, and, unknowingly at the time, those which were to prove defining and decisive moments in life, in my way,” says Prof. Thompson. “And I think that’s why I’m so passionate about students being at the very centre of all we do and strive for in our work.” In his eyes, Chinese students are extremely hard-working and motivated. He feels that in addition to hard work, the ability to constantly re-invent oneself is also an important tool all students need to acquire, especially in view of the fast-changing world we are in. “Take the music world for instance. In mainland China, there are some 30 million pianists that we know of, and there’s probably another 30 million that we don’t know about. So one can just imagine how intense and unparalleled the competition must be. Every one of us has to constantly re-engineer ourselves, to re-sharpen the saw regularly if we are to succeed and continue to do so in the future.”
To coax a truly memorable performance from an orchestra a conductor needs to first coach, to give something quite extraordinary to the orchestra. In turn they return the favour. So what does Prof. Thompson wish to give to his students as a college master in order to help them achieve full potential? “First of all, we strive to enable and deliver—where we can—some truly life-changing experiences to students, key formative moments, realistic expectations, whilst leaving room for those expectations to be exceeded. First, we provide tools by which students can accomplish something for themselves but in and enhanced by the presence of others. One’s life is spent in the company of those around us. What a tremendous resource that community proves to be, one made all the richer in a university and residential college environment where we rub shoulders with some of the brightest and most talented on a daily basis. And secondly, we have to provide tools by which students can live lives which are rich and meaningful.” He says he isn’t hung up on the title of “professor” and when he was in Dartington, students called him by his first name, which he didn’t mind. “The arts are great levellers. I don’t get hung up on the title of professor, because students don’t care who you are, or how many qualifications you have,” notes Prof. Thompson. “What they care about is ‘Can you do it’? Not in a Nike ad swoosh sense: ‘Just do it’ but can you relate to me?’ ‘Can we learn something together that’s worthwhile?’ So when someone asks me if I am a teacher, I say yeah, and it’s a badge which I wear with pride.”
