Dr Philip Thomas

Biography

Philip Thomas (b.1972, North Devon) specialises in performing new and experimental music, including both notated and improvised music. He places much emphasis on each concert being a unique event, designing imaginative programmes that provoke and suggest connections.

He is particularly drawn to the experimental music of John Cage, Morton Feldman and Christian Wolff, and composers who broadly work within a post-Cageian aesthetic. In recent years he has been particularly associated with the music of Christian Wolff, performing and recording the solo piano music, and co-editing a book about his music. He has commissioned new works from a number of British composers whose ideas, language and aesthetic have been informed in some ways by the aforementioned American composers, such as Stephen Chase, Laurence Crane, Richard Emsley, Christopher Fox, Bryn Harrison, John Lely, Tim Parkinson, Michael Parsons, and James Saunders and Markus Trunk.

In recent years Philip has pursued a passion for freely improvised music, after significant encounters with the music of AMM and Sheffield-based musicians Martin Archer, Mick Beck and John Jasnoch. He has worked with improvisers in a variety of contexts and recently devised a programme of composed music by musicians more normally known as improvisers as well as others who have been influenced by improvisation in some form. This led to a CD release, Comprovisation, which featured newly commissioned works by Mick Beck, Chris Burn and Simon H Fell.

Philip is a regular pianist with leading experimental music group Apartment House, with whom he has performed in festivals across the UK and Europe. He has also performed in duos with Ian Pace (piano duet and two pianos) and James Saunders (electronics).

In 1998 Philip was awarded a PhD from Sheffield University in the performance practice of contemporary piano music. Between 2000 and 2005, he was Head of the Sheffield Music School whilst pursuing an active performing and teaching career. He was appointed Lecturer in Performance at the University of Huddersfield in 2005, and Senior Lecturer in 2007. He continues to live in Sheffield, where he premieres the majority of his programmes, with his wife Tiffany and children Naomi and Jack.

Research & Scholarship

Philip 's most recent solo projects have included:

• Two concerts premiering major new works by Markus Trunk and Laurence Crane, alongside earlier works by these composers
• Concerts in New York, New Hampshire and Los Angeles featuring piano music by Christian Wolff and English experimental composers
• A three-concert survey of the solo piano music of Christian Wolff, alongside newly commissioned works by Stephen Chase, Tim Parkinson and Michael Parsons. This follows his concert at the 2007 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival which included the European premiere of Wolff 's Long Piano (Peace March 11)
• A series of concerts exploring the continuum between improvisation and composition, including premieres of specially composed works by Mick Beck, Chris Burn and Simon H Fell
• premiere performances of major new works by Richard Emsley and Christopher Fox
• a highly successful three-concert festival of the music of Morton Feldman, alongside three specially commissioned new works by Bryn Harrison, Michael Parsons and James Saunders
• performances of solo music by Lachenmann, Zimmermann and others in Spring 2002
• a John Cage and contemporary British composers festival in February 2001, including a number of world and British premieres.

Future plans include a concert of new American Experimental music, featuring a number of world and UK premieres.
Philip 's debut solo CD 'Comprovisation ' was released in 2007 on the Bruce 's Fingers label (BF66). Based upon his recent series of concerts featuring music exploring improvisation and notation, it features music by Mick Beck, Chris Burn, John Cage, Simon H Fell, Michael Finnissy and Paul Obermayer, and positively reviewed in the Sunday Times as being "incisively played and very clearly recorded ".

Future releases include: a CD of improvisations performed by Philip with Chris Burn and Simon H Fell (Another Timbre); the complete solo piano music of Christian Wolff (sub rosa); piano works by Tim Parkinson and Chris Burn.

Philip is a regular pianist with leading experimental music group Apartment House. Recent performances with them have included:

• British Library American Studies series: concert featuring music by David Behrman (with the composer), Robert Ashley, Gordon Mumma.
• John Cage: Concert reclaimed A concert as part of hcmf 2008 celebrating the 50th anniversary of the infamous 1958 John Cage retrospective at New York Town Hall, featuring a 45 minute version of Cage’s Concert for piano and orchestra
• Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival 2007, featuring music by Lithuanian composers Rytis Mazulis and George Maciunas
• Høvikodden festival, Oslo, Norway, featuring music by Cage, Lucier and Fox
• a James Clarke portrait concert at Kettle 's Yard, Cambridge
• Conway Hall, London, and Kettles Yard, Cambridge, featuring music by Christian Wolff with the composer
• a 70th birthday celebration of Christian Wolff 's music with the composer at Kettles Yard, Cambridge
• a BBC invitation concert featuring the music of Christopher Fox and others
• a 'Fluxus-Defluxus' event in Berlin as part of the 'Maerz-musik' festival
• Ultima festival, Norway, featuring music by Cage and others
• 2 concerts at the 2002 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, including a major portrait of the music of Christian Wolff, featuring the composer himself in a rare visit to England
• a Luc Ferrari/Sylvano Bussotti presentation at the 2002 Hoxton New Music Days
• a world premiere by Christopher Fox, broadast on the German radio network WDR and subsequently released on CD, in April 2002, at the Witten Neue Musik Tage, Germany
• a portrait concert of Clarence Barlow at the Hoxton New Music Festival in June 2001, which included two solo works and was subsequently broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

Other collaborations include:

• Simon Fell Ensemble, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival 2007
• Duo with James Saunders (electronics), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival 2006 (BBC Radio 3 broadcast)
• Ian Pace in a programme of experimental music for two pianos
• improvisers Martin Archer, Mick Beck and John Jasnoch

Philip has premiered solo works by Richard Ayres, Mick Beck, Chris Burn, Stephen Chase, Laurence Crane, Richard Emsley, Simon H Fell, Michael Finnissy, Christopher Fox, Bryn Harrison, John Lely, Tim Parkinson, Michael Parsons, James Saunders, Markus Trunk and Christian Wolff. His repertoire also includes works by Thomas Ades, Martin Arnold, Clarence Barlow, Gerald Barry, Luciano Berio, John Cage, Cornelius Cardew, James Clarke, Aldo Clementi, John Croft, George Crumb, Alvin Curran, Morton Feldman, Michael Finnissy, Graham Fitkin, Jürg Frey, Charles Ives, György Kurtag, Helmut Lachenmann, John Lely, Alvin Lucier, Olivier Messiaen, James Macmillan, Gordon Mumma, Per Nørgård, Katherine Norman, Paul Obermayer, Arvo Pärt, Wolfgang Rihm, Frederick Rzewski, Robert Saxton, Howard Skempton, Rodney Sharman, Linda C.Smith, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Mark R.Taylor, Michael Tippett, John White, Christian Wolff , and Walter Zimmermann.

In recent years Philip has been active as a writer primarily about performance issues relating to experimental music. This has resulted in articles in Contemporary Music Review and The Ashgate research Companion to Experimental Music (ed. James Saunders) about performance practice and indeterminacy. He is co-editor of, and has contributed two chapters to, Changing the System: the music of Christian Wolff (Ashgate Publications, 2010). He frequently gives papers, lectures and workshops on these and other subjects, including lecture-recitals at the Getty Research Institute, the Sixth Biennial Conference on Music Since 1900, and the 2009 Ostrava New Music Days.

Research Outputs

Areas for Research Supervision

I am keen to see research being developed in two areas which feel increasingly of significance: 1. performance practices of twentieth century music, and 2. experimental music studies. Performance practice and related studies is a burgeoning field but little is written about these in relation to twentieth century music. I am keen to work with PhD students in any field that relates to performance, and in relation to any instrument. My particular interests, however, are:

• twentieth century piano music
• notation and performance
• indeterminacy and performance
• complexity and performance
• performance of experimental music

Students may wish to combine studies in these or other areas with actual performance and can choose to do so by negotiating a performance/thesis option that is tailored to the student’s particular area of study.

Additionally, I am happy to supervise students wishing to undertake a musicology-based PhD programme in many areas of twentieth and twenty-first century music. My particular interests are:

• the music of Christian Wolff
• the music of John Cage
• experimental music
• British music
• Improvisation

Students currently studying for a PhD with me are researching the following topics:

• The prepared piano music of John Cage
• Collaborative relationships in the composition of new works for clarinet
• Extended techniques for the saxophone
• Recent saxophone repertoire
• Production of concerts featuring live electronics and instruments