Joel Thome

A Grammy Award recipient and Pulitzer Prize nominee, Joel Thome is an internationally acclaimed composer of classical and contemporary orchestral music. Having conducted various prominent and international orchestras, Thome is also a renowned conductor of opera and other music/theatre works. He has also collaborated with a number of renowned musicians, visual artists, film makers, and choreographers on various projects. His modern opera performances include the Weill/Brecht Threepenny Opera, and the Thomson/Stein Four Saints in Three Acts. Thome regularly collaborated with Frank Zappa, providing critically acclaimed arrangements of Zappa’s wide-ranging repertoire. In 1994, Thome’s Polygram/Verve recording of Zappa’s Universe received a Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental. Thome’s major compositions include Savitri Traveller of the Worlds (Pulitzer Prize nomination), the score for Picasso’s play Catch Desire by the Tail, Book of Beginnings V for Benny Reitveldt, and Time Spans. His recordings include the Thomson/Stein opera Four Saints in Three Acts (Nonesuch), Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire for Vox, and Satyavan: Dream Twilight for World Sound. Thome has served as a member of the board of directors of the Bronx Museum of the Arts, Mexican Institute for Culture in New York, Erick Hawkins Foundation for Modern Dance, and the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function. For several years he acted as the head of the Music Department at Carnegie Mellon University. In 2002 and 2004 he was awarded the Music Has Power Award, and the ASCAP award respectively. Thome received his BA from the Eastman School of Music, MA from the University of Pennsylvania, and Certificate from the Ecole Internationale for Music and Dance in Switzerland. He also studied with Pierre Boulez at the Concours Internationale in Switzerland.