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Augusta is a passionate and devoted teacher. She is in very close touch with 15 years' worth of students. Teaching is a natural extension of her creative process and of her avid enthusiasm for the music of others. She is a devoted listener to the music of others and as such has a broad and deep knowledge of the music of our time. For Augusta, working with students is a joy, a deeply felt commitment, and an integrated part of her creative existence.
Augusta was an assistant, then associate professor of composition at the Eastman School of Music from 1993-2001, and from 2001 until 2006 was the Wyatt Professor of Music (Endowed Chair) at Northwestern University. She currently continues her involvement with Northwestern University by serving on the Dean's Music Advisory Board. In the summers she often teaches at the Tanglewood Music Center. Augusta was the Director of the Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood in 2009. Frequently Ms. Thomas undertakes residencies in colleges, universities, and festivals across the country and in Europe. From time to time she teaches private composition lessons for advanced students. For 2009-2011 she is teaching and mentoring 10 high school-aged composers in the state of Connecticut.Ê Each composer will have his or her new piece premiered by the New Haven Symphony in May 2011.
American Academy of Arts and LettersThe American Academy of Arts And Letters (http://www.artsandletters.org) has elected Augusta Read Thomas to membership. She was inducted in May 2009. The American Academy of Arts and Letters is an honor society of 250 architects, composers, artists, and writers. The honor of election is considered the highest formal recognition of artistic merit in the United States.
The citation, given at her induction into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in May 2009, reads as follows:
"Augusta Read Thomas's impressive body of works embodies unbridled passion and fierce poetry. Championed by such luminaries as Barenbo im, Rostropovich, Boulez, and Knussen, she rose early to the top of her profession. Later, as an influential teacher at Eastman, Northwestern and Tanglewood, chairperson of the American Music Center, and the Chicago Symphony's longest-serving resident composer, she has become one of the most recognizable and widely loved figures in American Music."
G. Schirmer, Inc. is the exclusive publisher of Thomas' music, and her discography includes 45 commercially recorded CDs. Please visit www.augustareadthomas.com/recordings.html for a complete list of the recordings.
Ms. Thomas lives in, and divides her time between, Chicago, IL, and Becket, MA.
Upcoming projects include HELIOS CHOROS a triptych for orchestra (2006-2007) (title translation: Sun God Dancers) with a duration of 45 minutes:HELIOS CHOROS I, commissioned by the Dallas Symphony, was composed in 2006 and is dedicated with admiration and gratitude to Sir Andrew Davis, Victor Marshall, and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and was premiered on May 3,4,5,6, 2007 by the Dallas Symphony, Sir Andrew Davis conducting; HELIOS CHOROS II, co-commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra and Boston Symphony Orchestra, composed in 2008, with the LSO premiere in December 2008, Daniel Harding, conducting, and the BSO premiere date TBD; HELIOS CHOROS III, commissioned by the Orchestra of Paris, was composed in 2007 and is dedicated with admiration and gratitude to Christoph Eschenbach, and will be premiered on December 12, 2007 in Paris on a concert for which the curator was Pierre Boulez. On January 16, 2009, NEW WORK, a violin concerto co-commissioned by Festival Présences with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the BBC Proms, and Mr. and Mrs. Bill Brown, with Frank-Peter Zimmermann as violin soloist, will premiere in Salle Pleyel, Paris, with Kazuchi Ono conducting. A NEW WORK for orchestra, commissioned by the Juilliard School, will premiere in Fall 2009. SCAT for oboe (or flute), string trio and harpsichord (or piano), co-commissioned for the Walden Chamber Players by 20th Century Unlimited and Eleanor Eisenmenger with additional funding provided by the Argosy Foundation will premiere on November 11, 2007 at the Clark Art Museum in Williamstown, MA, at Smith College, and earlier that day at the state prison, Hampshire County House of Corrections, in North Hampton, MA. The ASCAP FOUNDATION has commissioned a work for cello and piano, IN MEMORIAM MSTISLAV ROSTROPOVICH, which will be premiered and recorded by Matt Haimovitz and is titled CANTOS FOR SLAVA. She is hoping to compose a chamber opera entitled ARIANNA, PRIMA DONNA. A NEW WORK for choir, commissioned by the San Francisco Girl's Chorus for the occasion of their 30th Anniversary, for their Chorissima chamber choir, will premiere in October 2008.
Premieres that took place during the 2005-2006 season included two new concerti for the Chicago Symphony: ASTRAL CANTICLE for violin, flute and orchestra featuring the principal players Robert Chen and Matthieu DuFour; and CARILLON SKY for violin and large ensemble. Other new works are SHAKIN' for orchestra (a tribute to Elvis Presley and Igor Stravinsky), commissioned by the Memphis Symphony Orchestra and the Music Library Association in honor of its 75th Anniversary; THE REWAKING for male chorus commissioned by Cornell University Glee Club; BERKSHIRE SONGS for chorus commissioned by the Nebraska Choral Arts Society; and ANGEL TEARS AND EARTH PRAYERS for organ and trumpet commissioned by the American Guild of Organists for their national convention. Two new solo piano etudes join the existing four and the full set is first presented by Stephen Gosling in New York City.
Highlights of her international performances this season are feature concerts at Helsinki's Music Nova Festival; and the French premiere of Ceremonial with the Orchestra National of Bordeaux Acquitania, conducted by Hannu Lintu. She also participates in artist residences and festivals at Cornell University, Bowling Green State University, Northwestern University, Smith College, New England Conservatory, and June in Buffalo, among others.
Ms. Thomas studied composition with Oliver Knussen at Tanglewood (1986, 1987, 1989), Jacob Druckman at Yale University (1988), with Alan Stout and Bill Karlins at Northwestern University (1983-1987), and at the Royal Academy of Music in London (1989). She was a Junior Fellow in the Society of Fellows at Harvard University (1991-94) and a Bunting Fellow at Radcliffe College (1990-91) — which is now The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University — and taught composition at Tanglewood during the summers of 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, and 2008. Thomas has also been on the Board of Directors of the American Music Center (www.amc.net) since 2000, as well as on the boards and advisory boards of several chamber music groups. Recently she was elected Chair of the Board of the American Music Center, a volunteer position that ran from 2005 to 2008.
 Augusta Read Thomas, Leonard Bernstein, and George Perle |
Additionally, Augusta wrote a work entitled SERENADE for chamber orchestra, commissioned by the Shedd Aquarium for the Seahorse Symphony exhibit, which was recorded on CD by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and which is playing as a tape loop in the Seahorse exhibit for a period of three years.
 Pierre Boulez and Augusta Read Thomas |
Upcoming Premieres
See the News & Performances page for upcoming premieres.
In addition to 36 CDs of her music that have been released by commercial record companies, Thomas has also self-produced five recordings, together representing excellent performances of 23 of her compositions. The five CDs, more information on which can be found on the Recordings page, are:
Words of the Sea (ARTCD19952006)
Terpsichore's Dream (ARTCD2007)
Traces and Magneticfireflies (ARTCD20002007)
Sun Threads (ARTCD19992007)
Prairie Sketches (ARTCD19912005)
Augusta Thomas has received prizes and awards from: the Siemens Foundation in Munich, ASCAP, BMI, the National Endowment for the Arts (1994, 1992, 1988), the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters (2001, 1994, 1989), the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Koussevitzky Foundation (1999), the New York Foundation for the Arts (1998), the John W. Hechinger Foundation, the Kate Neal Kinley Foundation, The Debussy Trio Music Foundation and Thomas van Straaten, Columbia University (Bearns Prize), the Naumburg Foundation, the Fromm Foundation (1996, 1992), the Barlow Endowment, Harriett Eckstein, the New York State Council for the Arts, and Chamber Music America; she received a prize in the French International Competition of Henri Dutilleux, The Rudolph Nissim Award from ASCAP, a Finalist Award in the Massachusetts Artists Fellowship Program, and the Indiana State University Orchestral Music Prize. She was awarded the Third Century Award from the Office of Copyrights and Patents in Washington, D.C.
Ms. Thomas was awarded fellowships from the Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College, the Rockefeller Foundation (Bellagio), the International Rotary Foundation, L'Ecole Normal in Fountainbleau, France, Tanglewood Music Center, the Gaudeamus Foundation, the Wellesley Composers Conference, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Aspen Music Festival and went twice to June in Buffalo. She was a Junior Fellow in the highly prestigious Society of Fellows at Harvard University between 1991 and 1994. She was elected and initiated as an Honorary Member of Sigma Alpha Iota Music Fraternity in 1996.
In 2007, Ms. Thomas's composition, ASTRAL CANTICLE, was one of two finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in Music.
Her work has been featured on NPR's "Morning Edition." as well as on Minnesota Public Radio's "The Composer's Voice." She was a Master Artist, leading a 3-week composition program, at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. She was twice a featured artist in a one-week program at the Conductor's Institute. Frequently, she undertakes short term residencies at colleges and universities across the country.
 Augusta Read Thomas at the |
Chamber music works have been performed by the Aspen Music Festival, the Tanglewood Music Festival, Chanticleer, Caramoor Music Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Eroica Trio, the Stony Brook Contemporary Music Ensemble, the San Francisco Contemporary Chamber Players, the Network for New Music, the Contemporary Chamber Players at the University of Illinois, the Indiana State University Contemporary Ensemble, the Green Umbrella Series, the Syracuse Society for New Music, the Fischer Duo, Heinrich Schiff, Catherine Tait, the Kapell Trio, the Debussy Trio, The Wellesley Composers Conference at the Miller Theater in NY, Trio West, The Lydian String Quartet, Eastman Brass, Jamal Rossi, Laurel Ann Maurer, the Lions Gate Trio, the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, John Marcellus, Scott Kluksdahl, Judy Siebert, Laura Frautschi, Bonita Boyd, Nicholas Goluses, the Core Ensemble, the Mendelssohn String Quartet, as well as individual soloists and various university ensembles.
What the Press is Saying about Augusta Read Thomas
Donald Rosenberg, Gramophone
Heart and soul in the breathtaking music of a thoughtful contemporary composer.
Thomas's brainy brand of modernism reveals a lively, probing mind allied to a beating heart.
"So many artistic ideas percolate in Augusta Read Thomas's brain that the listener almost needs to take a series of big breaths to absorb them all. Fortunately, this new disc of chamber works demonstrates that the American composer's music is striking in concept, texture and timbre. No danger, in other words, of anyone being tempted to stop listening. Thomas's brainy brand of modernism may not be for every taste but her music reveals a lively, probing mind allied to a beating heart.
"Poetry often inspires this composer, as the four RUMI SETTINGS for violin and cello vividly reflect. The instruments evoke the emotions and images in the 800-year-old texts. There conversations are harrowing and tender, pensive and fierce. SIX PIANO ETUDES, presented in pairs throughout the disk, are piquant and mysterious explorations of rhythm, motion and keyboard colors. Thomas achieves a kaleidoscope of shapes and shading with clusters, terraced dynamics and myriad other devices.
"There is nothing austerely contemporary about INCANTATIONS, a piece for solo violin that ventures through wistful and desolate territory, or another work for the instrument, PULSAR, which makes the most of compact materials. Two cello works also speak in animated, expressive voice: the solo BELLS RING SUMMER, a tone-poem of poignant gestures, repeated notes, and dramatic extremes; and CHANT, in which the cello teams with the piano in a series of ruminative and pungent dialogues.
"In orchestral works, operas and here in two intimate pieces, Thomas shows a keen ability to employ texts in passionate, unyielding settings. The brief BUBBLE: RAINBOW - SPIRIT LEVEL is an apt 95th birthday present for Elliott Carter. The disc's eponymous work, PRAIRIE SKETCHES, places a solo soprano in shimmering relationships with a small instrumental ensemble and two sopranos who occasionally echo or compliment the soloist's lines.
"The members of the Callisto Ensemble and colleagues advocate strongly for Thomas's uncompromising art. The performances are models of cohesion, character and detail."
John von Rhein, Chicago Tribune
"If the Boulez works by extension, Thomas' "songs of love and passion" work by accretion — layering a colorful, often sensuous array of sonorities from 18 strings, winds and percussion under the ecstatic leaps and lamenting descents of her lyrical, expressionistic vocal lines. Thomas' texts jump across the centuries, forming a poetic patchwork."
Justin Davidson, New York Newsday
 Augusta Read Thomas, Mstislav Rostropovich, and the cast of Ligeia at the work's premiere in Evian, France, in July 1994 |
"Other instruments, too, develop solo flights, and the texture becomes more and more rococo, full of trumpet calls, bass excursions and triangle tremolos. But the music always resolves back to the focal cello. However distended the melody, however perplexing the chords, this is ultimately an old-fangled piece — even Brahms might have nodded at the balance of sounds, the heroic eloquence, the measured unfolding of a narrative and the symphonic sense of gravitas.
"And yet Thomas might bridle at such an antique reference. "Modernism to me is about always looking forward, seeking the new, treasuring the unexpected, loving the abstract," she says. "It has to do with things that are in transition, things that are fugitive. I'm trying to pursue some unknown future. That's why modernism has to have hope. If you're going to build something brand new, you have to have some hope that it's out there — or that anyone cares.""
Richard Buell, The Boston Globe
"It seems that with every new Thomas piece one has occasion to remark that this is a gifted young composer who will be heard from. It happens again."
John von Rhein, Chicago Tribune
"Thomas' music, particularly her orchestral music, fairly explodes with an extroverted boldness of utterance audiences and musicians alike find challenging yet immediate. It's music that doesn't sound like anybody else's — music that insists you pay attention."
Robert Maycock, The Independent, London
"Thomas has more experience with orchestra than others and it shows in an unmistakable air of knowing what she wants to say and how to say it. Balances work, blends succeed. There is a powerful lyrical instinct at work, resulting in some well sustained melodic lines."
John Ardoin, Dallas Morning News
"This young composer...already has amassed many honors, commissions and hearings by major orchestras. It is not difficult to understand why. Her music.. is evocative and shows a well-developed feeling for, and a mastery of, orchestral colors."
Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times
"Ms. Thomas has vivid ear for instrumental color."
Daniel Webster, The Philadelphia Inquirer
"Thomas' piece [GLASS MOON]...was about 11 minutes of boldly considered music that celebrated the sound of the instruments and seemed to reaffirm the vitality of orchestral music in general."
Wes Blomster, American Record Guide
"...Thomas has created in [LIGEIA] an original and powerful work — intense yet aglow with lovely lyric undercurrents."
Augusta on Jazz Influences on her Work
Quoting Augusta Read Thomas on jazz influences in her work and on her personal term: "CAPTURED IMPROVISATION":
"My favorite moment in any piece of music is that of maximum risk and striving. Whether the venture is tiny or large, loud or soft, fragile or strong, passionate, erratic, or eccentric — the moment of exquisite humanity and raw soul!"
"All art that I cherish has elements of order, mystery, love, recklessness, and desperation. For me, music must be alive and jump off the page and out of the instrument as if something big is at stake."
"It is clear, in all my works, that I have been listening to jazz for 30 years. I am not a composer who does empty-headed "cross-over" jazz pieces- where the jazz bits make all the jazzer"s blush with embarrassment.... rather, there is a deeply integrated and digested set of references and perfumes which can be sensed. That"s all I mean — set of references and perfumes — I am certainly not implying that I am a Jazz artist, nor anything of the sort."
"Although my music is highly notated, precise, carefully structured —and proportioned, etc.... and you may have 80 to 100 musicians all working elegantly together —from my specific text....I like my music to have the fee ling that it is organically being self propelled on the spot. Like we, the audience, were overhearing A CAPTURED IMPROVISATION. Comes from all my Jazz listening. I like my music to be played so that the "inner-life" of the different rhythmic syntaxes are specific, with characterized phrasing of the music- keeping it very alive —so it has a spontaneous energy — always within the frame work of the sublime, utterly precise TECHNICAL MASTERY OF THE MUSICIANS that is needed to play the notations. For this, I deeply thank the musicians who play my music."
Stephen Brookes, The Washington Post
[on DANCING HELIX RITUALS] "The standout piece was Augusta Read Thomas's Dancing Helix Rituals from 2006. It's a dance, certainly — but a wild, driving, exhilarating dance that hurtled out of the gate and built into a riot of jazzy rhythms and colorful gestures. Like all good rituals, it was intoxicating — and the trio brought it off with a fine, eloquent frenzy."
Scott Cantrell, Dallas Morning News
[on HELIOS CHOROS I] "...a logical connection: Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. Helios Choros I is a brightly scored, and made much of jazzy figures."
Alan Rich, Los Angeles Weekly
[on CANTICLE WEAVING] "Some of the concerto teeters on the edge of jazziness, and does so quite nicely."
Clarence Fanto, The Berkshire Eagle
[on SCAT] "Scat employs some gestures and elements typical of jazz, but comes across as a free-form, propulsive chamber work infused with tightly-coiled energy. The Walden performers successfully captured the improvisational spirit of the eight-minute work. Thomas has created a fascinating piece that honors the jazz tradition while avoiding imitative "crossover" techniques. Scat is well worth additional hearings."
John von Rhein, The Chicago Tribune
[on AURORA] "...bits of Bartok, Webern and Messiaen here, a quasi-jazz riff there."
Photos for Press and Promotional Reproduction
Click on the desired photo below for a high resolution copy to download. Please credit photographs as follows: "Photo © by Michael Lutch"
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