Associate Professor of viola at Penn State University where he teaches viola, chamber music, viola literature, pedagogy, and orchestral excerpts classes, and directs the Penn State Viola Ensemble. A native of New Zealand, he received a bachelor of music and first class honours degree from Victoria University of Wellington, an artist diploma from the Hartt School of Music, and a doctor of musical arts degree in viola and violin from the University of Kansas.

A committed teacher, Deighton was recognized as the 2002 String Teacher of the Year by the Pennsylvania-Delaware String Teachers Association, and in 2009 he received the College Teaching Award from the College of Arts and Architecture at Penn State. His former students hold positions in professional orchestras and on the faculties of music schools in the United States and overseas. Recent teaching engagements include master classes in the UK at the Royal College of Music, the Royal Northern College of Music, and Chethams School of Music, and at universities and conservatories in South and Central America. His articles have appeared in numerous string music publications. He is a board member of both the American Viola Society and the New York Viola Society. In 1999 he organized and directed “ViolaFest,” at Penn State, involving more than 200 violists from across North America and abroad. The Penn State Viola Ensemble, which he founded and directs, has given numerous performances, including recent appearances on New York Viola Society Collegial Concerts, where they presented four world premieres.

Having long held a fascination for new music, he has performed premieres of more than fifty new works for viola, many of which were commissioned by or written for him. His first solo CD, Viola Aotearoa, featuring music for viola by New Zealand composers, was released in 2002 on the Atoll label. His playing on this disc was described in The Strad as “brilliant and differentiated,” and the CD was one of the New Zealand Listener’s Top 10 classical recordings of 2002. As a member of the contemporary chamber music duo The Irrelevants, he and saxophonist Carrie Koffman have commissioned and premiered many new works. Their new CD entitled Dialogues will be released later this year. The Chihara Trio (with Anthony Costa, clarinet, and Enrico Elisi, piano) will present commissioned works by several composers this season (including Paul Chihara, from whom the trio takes its name), culminating in a recital at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in March 2010. They are represented by Arioso Artists Management.

Recent chamber music collaborations include those with the American String Quartet, Quartet Accorda, and the New Zealand String Quartet, and with musicians outside the traditional classical field such as the traditional Mäori musical instrumentalist (Taongo Puoro) Richard Nunns. Deighton has appeared at four International Viola Congresses as recitalist, chamber musician, and soloist with orchestra, and as master class presenter and panelist. Many of Deighton’s solo and chamber music performances have been broadcast on U.S., European, and Australasian radio. He is a National Recording Artist for Radio New Zealand, and was a member of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. Recent orchestral work includes concerts with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. He appears often in recital with his wife, pianist Ann Deighton.

During the summers he serves on the faculty of the International Musical Arts Institute (IMAI) in Fryeburg, Maine. Other festivals at which he has recently appeared include Music at Penn’s Woods (PA), The Pierre Monteux Festival (ME), the Gold Coast Music Festival (CA), the Dublin International Symphonic Festival, Ireland, the Adam New Zealand Festival of Chamber Music, the ASM Festival, Panama, and Rencontres Musicales Internationales des Graves, France.