Augusta Read Thomas

Biography

Augusta Read Thomas (b. 1964, New York) is an American composer.

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.

Seven years after graduating from the Royal Academy of Music, she was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (ARAM, honorary degree). In 1998 she received the Distinguished Alumni Association Award from St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. In 1999, she received the Award of Merit from the President of Northwestern University. At the age of 33, she received tenure from the Eastman School.

Ms. Thomas was Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (1997-2006) and, until 2008, Chair of the Board of the American Music Center, on which she has served for the past five years. Starting September 2006, Thomas resigned from her position as the Wyatt Professor of Music at Northwestern University to devote her time exclusively to composition.

Works for Winds

Carnival (2022)
Crackle (2020)
Dancing Galaxy (2004)
Hemke Concerto (tr. Buchanan) (2014/2019)
Magneticfireflies (2001)
Of Being Is a Bird (2015)
Qi
Ring, Flourish, Blaze! (2000)
Selene (arr. Colnot) (2015/2017)

Resources

Augusta Read Thomas website
August Read Thomas. Wikipedia. Accessed 5 May 2022
The Horizon Leans Forward…, compiled and edited by Erik Kar Jun Leung, GIA Publications, 2021, p. 494.
Spinazzola, James. "Dancing Galaxy." In Teaching Music through Performance in Band. Volume 6, edit. & comp. by Richard Miles, 791-799. Chicago: GIA Publications, 2007.