Thomas is a versatile keyboard player who performs regularly as a solo harpsichordist and organist, and as a continuo player with several chamber ensembles. He is currently Director of Music and organist at St Mary-le-Bow Church, Cheapside, the famous Wren church in the heart of the City of London. Here he plays the 2010 organ by Kenneth Tickell and presents an exciting musical programme which involves chamber music recitals, organ recitals, a summer music festival, early music concerts, and an amateur chorus, as well as providing liturgical choral and organ music for church services and services for the ancient Livery companies of the City of London. Thomas has also held posts at Worcester and Magdalen Colleges in Oxford, and at St Marylebone Parish Church.
Having initially studied Music at the University of Oxford, he graduated with distinction from the Masters programme at the Royal College of Music in 2014. In 2018 he was awarded a scholarship to study for an Artist Diploma at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. His teachers have included Stephen Farr, William Whitehead, Margaret Phillips and Terence Charlston. He currently studies harpsichord with Carole Cerasi and James Johnstone. As a recitalist, Thomas has performed in many of the UK’s great buildings including St Paul’s Cathedral, St Lawrence Jewry, Blackburn Cathedral, St George’s Hanover Square, and Southwark Cathedral. In 2016 he was supported by the Eric Thompson trust to study historic organ repertoire with Erwin Wiersinga at the Martinikirk in Groningen.
Thomas is in regular demand as a continuo player on organ and harpsichord, and is the regular continuo player of award-winning chamber ensemble, Ensemble Hesperi. With this group, he has performed at numerous leading UK festivals, presenting a collaborative programme (funded by Arts Council England) showcasing Scottish Baroque Music with Highland dance. With Ensemble Hesperi, Thomas is also a ‘Live Music Now’ artist, delivering regular workshops in care homes, day centres and SEND schools across the UK. In 2014-15, Thomas was a Junior Fellow in Harpsichord and Continuo at the Royal College of Music, and in 2019, he was selected as a Britten-Pears young artist, performing Bach cantatas under the direction of Philippe Herreweghe at Snape Maltings. Thomas is passionate about teaching figured bass and continuo and is undertaking research into how seventeenth and eighteenth centuries continuo treatises can be adapted for use in keyboard education today. Thomas currently teaches basso continuo in the Historical Performance department at the Royal College of Music.
