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 b. 1958 |
David Evan Thomas David Evan Thomas is the recipient of a Citation from the American Academy & Institute of Arts and Letters, a McKnight Foundation fellowship, and the Mîller-A.G.O. Award in Choral Composition. Born in Rochester, NY in 1958, David Evan Thomas attended Penfield High School and received his early musical training in the Preparatory Department of the Eastman School of Music, graduating with Honors in Trumpet. As an undergraduate at Northwestern University, he was active at Alice Millar Chapel under the direction of Grigg Fountain. After returning to Eastman, where as a masters student he was awarded the Director's Fellowship, he taught for much of the 1980s at Montana State University-Billings. As a doctoral student at the University of Minnesota, he held two Graduate Fellowships, served as Dominick Argento's teaching assistant, and taught composition and orchestration, receiving the Ph.D. in 1996. Thomas's teachers have included composers Argento, Samuel Adler and Alan Stout. He received further training at the Atlantic Center for the Arts and at the Aspen Festival. In recent years, he has three times been a resident artist at Wyoming's Ucross Foundation. David Evan Thomas's varied catalogue includes music for orchestra and band, two dozen chamber works 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 thirty-some choral works, two of which were granted honors by Waging Peace Through Singing in 2002. His friendship with organists James and Marilyn Biery has resulted in concert music for organ solo and duet (available through MorningStar) and three volumes of service music (available through Augsburg Fortress). Thomas's music is also published by E.C. Schirmer and Yelton-Rhodes, is recorded on C.R.I. and Ten Thousand Lakes, and has been performed by such ensembles as the Minnesota Orchestra, Minnesota Chorale, Long Island Philharmonic and Rochester Chamber Orchestra; the trio of Gil Shahan, Truls Mørk and Yefim Bronfman; the The Rose Ensemble, Rosalyra Quartet, Klemp-Kachian Duo, Galhano-Montgomery Duo; and many beloved solo performers, including Karen Clift, Maria Jette, Vern Sutton and Burt Hara. From 2003-2005, Thomas was a Faith Partners composer-in-residence with Westminster Presbyterian Church (Minneapolis) and the Cathedral of Saint Paul through the American Composers Forum. He has also served in that capacity with the Billings Symphony, Saint Paul Academy, The Rose Ensemble, and since 1997, The Schubert Club. He lives in Minneapolis. |