Verne Waldo Thompson
1899 - 1964
Verne Thompson was an accomplished pianist who accompanied professionally and taught at two Seventh-day Adventist schools. He was born in Dinuba, California, and married Willa Norine Culp after completing a music degree at Pacific Union College in 1923.
Thompson started his career teaching music at Hawaiian Academy from 1923 to 1929. He then taught at and served as director of the Punahou Music School in Hawaii for twelve years, until the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. He subsequently accompanied Marion Anderson and Lauritz Melchior when they visited the islands to perform for the U.S. Armed Forces.
Thompson completed an M.Mus. and, in 1943, accepted an offer to teach piano at Emmanuel Missionary College, now Andrews University, where he taught until 1947. He completed a Ph.D. in 1955. His dissertation, Studies in Music Literature: Selected Composers of the 18th and 19th Centuries . . . A Synopsis in Topical Form, was published by the Department of Music Literature, Eastman School of Music, in 1964, the year he died, and by Wm. C. Brown Co. in 1968.
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