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The American counter-tenor, Thomasa Aláan, obtained his Bachelor of Arts in Music Education (voice and saxophone) from Alderson-Broaddus University; and his Master of Arts in Vocal Pedagogy at Texas Woman’s University with renowned author and pedagogue, Joan Wall. He has studied with Sheri Greenawald, Mark Crayton, Ellen Hargis, Elizabeth Parker, Max van Egmond, Ann Baltz, David Brock, Beverly Hoch, Linda Poetschke, and Lewis Hall.
Critically acclaimed stellar [Chicago Tribune] Thomas Aláan has been a featured soloist on radio shows, album recordings, concert series, and festivals across the USA. He has performed with groups including Alchymy Viols, Ars Antigua, Bella Voce Camerata, Grace Lutheran Church: Bach Cantata Vespers, Charlottesville Early Music Access Project, Credo, Elgin Master Elgin Symphony Orchestra and Chorale, Helios Ensemble, Northwest Indiana Symphony Orchestra, Mountainside Baroque, Musikanten Montana, and Schola Antiqua. With the Bach and Beethoven Experience (BBE), he has performed on the Boston Early Music Festival, the Bach and Beyond Baroque Early Music Festival, the Baroque on Beaver Island Festival, the Wicker Park Music Festival, and the Bloomington Early Music Festival. He’s been heard on WGN Radio (Up Late with Patti Vasquez, Nocturnal Journal), WNPR (The Midday), WFMT (The Midnight Special, Midday), and Chicago Irish Radio, and has interviewed with Early Music America, Huffington Post, and 98.7 WFMT.
His recordings include Antonio Vivaldi’s solo cantata Stabat mater dolorosa for Biretta Books; Haydn’s Requiem and A. Vivaldi’s Gloria with the Elgin Master Chorale and Symphony Orchestra; Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms with the Northwest Indiana Symphony Orchestra; and An Appalachian Summer, A Gaelic Summer, and Chicago Stories: The Album with the BBE.
Thomas Aláan has premiered several new works written for counter-tenor, including Eric Malmquist’s Two Assyrian Songs, A Portrait of Lam Ho, and A Valediction; Amos Gillespie’s Three Songs; Mark Nowakowski’s O Dulcis Electe, Chesterton’s Carol, and Mizerna Cicha; Kurt Westerberg’s Three Orphic Hymns; and Lucas Tuazon’s In service to. He will solo in the BBE’s upcoming four-part commission Chicago Stories: The Oratorio.
Outside of singing, Thomas Aláan divides his time teaching voice in his home studio at Chicago Voice Lessons; as Executive Director of the Bach and Beethoven Experience (BBE); as Assistant Conductor and Director of Women’s Schola at Holy Name Cathedral; as a sustainability educator at the University of Illinois at Chicago where he runs the internationally acclaimed Summer Institute on Sustainability and Energy and teaches Music as a Tool for Environmentalism and Change in the Honors College; and as a saxophonist. He has presented talks on singing and pedagogy, vocal rhetoric, interdisciplinary collaboration, and entrepreneurship in the arts at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the Illinois Institute of Technology, the Helena Music Teachers Association, DePaul University, and through the Self Employment in the Arts (SEA) Art Business Entrepreneurship Workshop.
Thomas Aláan is a Paul J. Collins Fellow at the University of Wisconsin - Madison where he is a candidate (ABD) for the Doctorate in Musical Arts in Performance with Jim Doing (expected graduation: 2021). His research focuses on the performance practice and ornamentation of Sean-nòs singers and the intersectionality of music with science, philosophy, and environmentalism.
Outside of music, Thomas Aláan volunteers as Vice President of the Board of Directors of Beyond Legal Aid. He is a calorie counting gym rat and a wannabe DJ. When not engaged in any of the above activities, he can be found cooking in the kitchen or feeding his cats their breakfast, lunch, dinner, or snacks. |
