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The English musician, Fred Thomas, studied piano and composition at the Royal Academy of Music in London, graduating with Bachelor of Music degree in 2009.
Fred Thomas is one of London’s most sought-after multi-instrumentalists and composer/arranger/producers. A member of the F-IRE Collective, he recently embarked on a trilogy of J.S. Bach recordings to be released on ECM, The Silent Howl and Odradek Records. His first is a trio with Aisha Orazbayeva and Lucy Railton that plays Thomas’s transcriptions of J.S. Bach’s Chorale Preludes, the scores of which are published by Edition Wilhelm Hansen. His second, ‘Electrofeit‘, is a solo organ record and featured the multi-tracking of fugues inspired by the work of historian Hayden White.
Other projects include The Beguilers, a sextet that interprets Fred Thomas’s song settings of poetry; his Polyphonic Jazz Band, a quintet with Martin Speake that explores improvised polyphony; a trio with Maurizio Ravalico and actor Gary Cooper that pits improvised music for prepared piano and percussion against prose-poems; an ongoing recording of contemporary interpretations of the medieval Chantilly Codex; a duo with his violinist father Peter Thomas; and a Richard Wagner tribute band with jazz pianist Liam Noble.
Fred Thomas has appeared or collaborated with a wide variety of artists, including Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Jordi Savall, Jarvis Cocker, Ethan Iverson, Tamara Stefanovich, Basquiat Strings, Kadialy Kouyate, Leo Abrahams, Lisa Knapp, Mor Karbasi, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Elysian Quartet, Jason Yarde, Julian Siegel, Alice Zawadzki, Jiri Slavik, Zac Gvi, Pete Flood, The Magic Lantern, Seb Rochford, Oren Marshall and Olivia Chaney, as well as record labels Harmonica Mundi and Realworld. He has worked at The National Theatre and has toured worldwide with Filter Theatre and as musical director with Shakespeare’s Globe.
Fred Thomas teaches at Trinity Laban and as a producer has recorded albums for many artists in Europe. His most recent compositions, for voice, string quartet and percussion, were commissioned by BitterSuite and Phaedra Ensemble and are being performed internationally and at the Royal Opera House, London. He currently lives in London, England. |
