Biography
The music of David Evan Thomas has been praised for its eloquence, power and craft. Critics note Thomas’s loving ties to tradition, made evident in clear forms, smart instrumental writing and skillful orchestration. Audiences respond to the music’s warmth, lyricism and sense of play.
The recipient of a Citation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a McKnight Foundation fellowship and the Möller-A.G.O. Award in Choral Composition, Thomas has received commissions from the Minnesota Orchestra, The Schubert Club, the American Composers Forum and the American Guild of Organists. He has twice been a resident artist at Wyoming’s Ucross Foundation, and his choral work has received High Honors from Waging Peace Through Singing.
David Evan Thomas’s varied catalogue includes music for orchestra and wind ensemble, thirty chamber works, keyboard pieces large and small, and an opera. Vocal music is particularly prominent, with eleven song cycles—on subjects ranging from medieval women troubadours to the baseball writings of Donald Hall—and over forty choral works. Thomas’s music is published by ECS, Falls House, Fatrock Ink, Jeanné and Yelton-Rhodes, and recorded on CRI and Ten Thousand Lakes. His concert music for organ solo and duet is available through MorningStar, and four volumes of service music are published by Augsburg Fortress. Thomas is a B.M.I. affiliate.
Thomas’s orchestral music has been performed by the Minnesota Orchestra, National Orchestral Association, Rochester Chamber Orchestra and Long Island Philharmonic, and conducted by Jorge Mester, Eiji Oue, Gian-Carlo Guerrero, David Wiley and John P. Paynter. His choral works have been sung by London’s Westminster Cathedral Choir, the Minnesota Chorale, the National Lutheran Choir and the Rose Ensemble. Thomas chamber works have been played by the trio of Gil Shaham, Truls Mørk and Yefim Bronfman, the Minneapolis and Rosalyra String Quartets, the Blue Baroque Band, the Minneapolis Guitar Quartet, Zeitgeist and many beloved solo performers: singers Karen Clift, Maria Jette, Patricia Kent, Dennis Petersen and Vern Sutton; pianists John Churchwell, Margo Garrett, Timothy Lovelace, Sonja Thompson, Stephanie Wendt, Shannon Wettstein and Elizabeth Wolff; organists James Biery, Marilyn Biery and Dean Billmeyer, and instrumentalists David Baldwin, Burt Hara and Jeffrey Van.
Born in Rochester, New York in 1958, David Evan Thomas grew up as the fourth of five children in a musical family, the son of flutist John Thomas. David attended Penfield High School and the Eastman School of Music “Prep” Department, graduating with Honors in Trumpet as a student of Richard Jones. During this time he received encouragement as a composer from David Russell Williams. As an undergraduate at Northwestern University, he studied trumpet, composition and conducting and sang in the Alice Millar Chapel Choir under Grigg Fountain’s direction. As a master’s degree student at Eastman he was awarded the Director's Fellowship; he then taught throughout the 1980s at Montana State University-Billings. Thomas served as Dominick Argento’s assistant at the University of Minnesota, where he also taught composition and orchestration, receiving the Ph.D. in 1996. Thomas’s teachers have included composers Dominick Argento, Samuel Adler, Robert Morris and Alan Stout, and trumpeter Vincent Cichowicz. He studied further at the Aspen Festival and with David Diamond at the Atlantic Center for the Arts.
From 2003-2005, Thomas was a composer-in-residence with Westminster Presbyterian Church (Minneapolis) and the Cathedral of Saint Paul through the American Composers Forum Faith Partners program. He has also served in that capacity with Saint Paul Academy and, from 1997-2005, The Schubert Club. In recent years, Thomas has also presented “articulated recitals” for the Saint Paul Summer Song Festival, and has written program notes for Minnesota Orchestra, Schubert Club, VocalEssence and Brevard Festival program books. Thomas lives in Minneapolis, where he sings, conducts occasionally, studies piano with Stephanie Wendt, and turns lots of pages for great pianists.
(Photo: Scott Streble)
Medium Bio (200 words)
The music of David Evan Thomas has been praised for its eloquence, power and craft. In addition to awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the McKnight Foundation and the American Guild of Organists, Thomas has received commissions from the Minnesota Orchestra, the Jerome Foundation, The Schubert Club and the American Composers Forum.
Thomas’s music is published by ECS, Augsburg Fortress and MorningStar, and has been performed by the Minnesota Orchestra, London’s Westminster Cathedral Choir and the trio of Gil Shaham, Truls Mørk and Yefim Bronfman. He has served as composer-in-residence with Westminster Presbyterian Church (Minneapolis), the Cathedral of Saint Paul, and from 1997-2005, The Schubert Club.
Born in Rochester, New York in 1958, David Evan Thomas graduated with Honors from the “Prep” Department of the Eastman School of Music, and received degrees from Northwestern University, Eastman and the University of Minnesota. His teachers have included Dominick Argento, Samuel Adler and Alan Stout, with further training at the Aspen Festival and with David Diamond at the Atlantic Center for the Arts.
Thomas lives in Minneapolis, where he is also active as a program annotator, choral singer, amateur pianist, conductor and page-turner.
Mini Bio (50 words)
Born in Rochester, New York, David Evan Thomas studied at Northwestern University, the Eastman School, and with Dominick Argento at the University of Minnesota. His work has been commissioned by the Minnesota Orchestra, honored by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and published by ECS, Augsburg Fortress and MorningStar.