DENTON (UNT), Texas -- The University of North Texas College of Music has named Jonathan Thompson the 2017-2018 Presser Graduate Music Award winner and recipient of the $10,000 Presser scholarship.

The Presser Graduate Music Award is a program designed to “encourage and support in a special way the advanced education and career of truly exceptional graduate music students who have the potential to make a distinguished contribution to the field of music.”

The winner is nominated and selected by the UNT College of Music faculty and receives the award from the Presser Foundation, which awards annual scholarships, grants and funds for the furthering of music education in America. Theodore Presser, who was a music publisher and philanthropist, established the foundation in 1916.

Thompson earned a bachelor of music in oboe performance and a master of music in oboe performance and literature at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He is currently working on his doctoral of musical arts in performance at UNT.

Thompson plans to use the scholarship to fund a project to study oboe music and performance in Mexico.  

“As a Mexican-American oboist, I focus on Mexican music for the oboe and my idea of a dissertation–a brief history of the oboe in Mexico and an annotated bibliography of Mexican chamber and solo music–will be a great resource for the oboe community,” Thompson said. “I am thrilled to be expanding the oboe repertoire and collaborating with musicians in Mexico.”

Thompson said that a majority of classical music comes from Europe and America. Now that he is a doctoral student, he hopes to explore a niche interest and bring Mexican music into the oboe realm.

“I am humbled to have been awarded this grant and very excited about all the goals I will be able to meet with the money,” he said. “I am excited to get to work and make an impact.”