Catalog: Biographies: Page 22 of 25

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Tennyson, Alfred

English poet (see songs) 1809 - 1892, working primarily in English

This entry contributed by G&K around 11/22/98

Other Web Site: http://search.biography.com/print_record.pl?id=3442

This entry contributed by G&K around 1/25/99

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Thomas, Richard Pearson

American composer (see songs) and poet (see songs) working primarily in English

This entry contributed by G&K around 10/15/98

Richard Pearson Thomas is recognized as a gifted composer of concert and theater music. An evening of his songs entitled Observation Deck was presented at Lincoln Center in January featuring Theresa McCarthy, Lauren Ward and Michael Winther. This season saw premieres of a number of commissioned works including Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, Abridged and Condensed created for baritone John Muriello at the University of Iowa, and Vergin Tutt'Amor, commissioned by soprano Kati Guerra for performance with the Saint Louis Chamber Orchestra. Soprano Patricia Prunty recorded a number of Mr. Thomas' art songs and cabaret songs following her recital at Trinity Chapel in New York and soprano Jennifer Bodenweber presented her commissioned Letter from Camp on that same concert series. 'Currents' at the University of Richmond, Virginia presented Gertie's Head with soprano, Jeanette Thompson.

His Off-Off Broadway musical Ladies in a Maze was produced by Encompass Music Theatre in 1996. Cafe Society, a musical, was presented during the 1988 Winter Olympics Arts Festival in Calgary, Canada. Cafe Society was also chosen as a selection of the Opera/Music Theater Conference of The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center and was subsequently produced as Cafe Vienna by Intimate Opera/Salt Lake City; Opera at Florham in Madison New Jersey and on the National Music Theater Network's 'Broadway Dozen' series. He has contributed music to several productions at the Skylight Opera Theatre in Milwaukee and the Banff Centre in Canada. Mr. Thomas' work is featured each year on the prestigious Celebration of Life concerts benefiting Broadway Cares/Equity fights AIDS.

His piece AIDS Anxiety was singled out for performance at the 1992 Congressional Forum on the International HIV/AIDS Pandemic in Washington, D.C. following its premiere in Alice Tully Hall by baritones Kurt Ollmann, William Sharp and Sanford Sylvan. It appears on the CD AIDS Quilt Songbook (Harmonium Mundi) and has been performed worldwide. His arrangement of Charles Ives' The Children's Hour was commissioned by Mr. Ollmann for performance with the Boston Pops.

Soprano Karen Beardsley premiered Mr. Thomas' Songs to Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay and A Little Nonsense (texts by Edward Lear) at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in 1997. Mr. Thomas' song cycle Ladies of Their Nights and Days has been featured in concert and cabaret performances at such diverse venues as Weill Recital Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, Eighty-Eights Cabaret and on numerous college campuses. His art song repertoire is performed frequently by singers in the United States and abroad. 'I never saw a moor,' his setting of the poem by Emily Dickinson has been recorded by Lauren Wagner (Channel Classics) and was performed in Paris for Pamela Harriman, the United States Ambassador to France by Mirror Visions, which also commissioned settings of poems by Ferlinghetti and Nash. Soprano Francis Ginsberg has sung a commissioned arrangement of Christmas carols, O Night Divine!, to critical acclaim and baritone Mark Moliterno premiered Mr. Thomas' song cycle Drum Taps at Weill Recital Hall in commemoration of the 1992 Walt Whitman Centennial.

His music for the film What Became Known as...The Eleanor Affair was awarded Best Original Score at the 1997 NYU First Film Festival. He also composed music for The Sparrow, an independent feature.

Equally admired as a composer for children, Mr. Thomas has been featured as a Lincoln Center Meet-the-Artist in addition to his continuing position as composer-in-residence for the Gold Opera Project of Young Audiences/New York, which received the 1994 National Medal of the Arts. Under his guidance, children write and perform an opera based on their own libretti. Mr. Thomas will work with children in a similar capacity this season through the Broadway Theater Institute. His educational opera Highnotes! toured the Northeast five seasons through New York's Encore, Inc. The Music Theater Machine, his opera for young people, was commissioned by the Banff Centre and continues to be produced by companies such as Houston Grand Opera and Chautauqua Opera. It was featured at the 1993 National Opera Association Convention.

An accomplished pianist and music director, Richard Pearson Thomas conceived The Big Apple Cabaret for the Covent Garden Festival in London and was featured as solo pianist on Kurt Weill's Street Scene recorded for German/Swiss television. He has served as coach/music director with the Aspen Music Festival, Lake George Opera, Skylight Opera Theater, the Banff Centre, and the Yale School of Music. A native of Montana, Mr. Thomas is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music. He pursued advanced studies in Scoring for Motion Pictures and Television at the University of Southern California.

This entry contributed by Richard Pearson Thomas around 10/19/98

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