Collection: Read, Thomas L.

Thomas L. Read, noted composer and violinist, is Professor Emeritus at the University of Vermont. Born in Erie, Pennsylvania in 1938, he studied violin, composition and conducting at the Oberlin, Mozarteum, New England and Peabody Conservatories with such noted musicians as Andor Toth Sr., Richard Burgin, Bernhard Paumgartner, Leon Fleisher, and Benjamin Lees. As violinist he has been a member of the Erie Philharmonic, Baltimore Symphony, Boston Festival Arts (under Harold Farberman), the Handel/Haydn Society, Vermont Symphony and the Saratoga Festival of Baroque Music. He has taught at the Peabody Conservatory, the Peabody Junior Conservatory (now The Walden School) and Westchester State College. He was a co-founder and former president of the Consortium of Vermont Composers, served as chair of Region I, American Society of Composers, and on music composition award and arts fellowship panels for PSC-CUNY and the Maine Composers Forum, Vermont Council on the Arts, and the New Hampshire Arts Council. He joined the faculty of the University of Vermont in 1967, becoming Professor Emeritus in 2008. During his more than 40 years on the faculty he taught all of the Music Department’s theory and composition courses and many literature and genre courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. A considerable portion of his professional life was devoted to organizing concerts and conducting. In addition to various ad hoc chamber ensembles, he led the University Symphony for two seasons, the Vermont Youth Orchestra for two seasons, pit orchestras for many musicals produced by the Royall Tyler Theatre, and he inaugurated and led an annual Symposium on Contemporary Music at the University with concerts, lectures, discussions and master classes. Symposium guest artists included Henry Brant, Morton Feldman, Otto Luening, Robert Miller, and Bertram Turetzky.

He has written music for a variety of media- much of it on commission: music for full orchestra including three symphonies, small ensembles, solo voice, chorus and musical theater. Working with many performers and venues, his music has been heard live and through radio broadcasts across the U.S. and in various European cities from London to Sofia. He has been a recipient of Vermont Arts Council and University Stipends, UVM Faculty Emeritus Development Awards, and  fellowships from organizations such as the McDowell Colony, the Charles Ives Institute, and the Johnson Composers Conference.   C.F.Peters, American Composers Edition, and Tuba Euphonium Press  publish his work. Listen to his music on Navona Records, ACA Recordings, Zimbel Records, VCME Records, Socialband.org, ERM Media Masterworks, Vol.2, and on You Tube. A complete repertoire and recording catalogue is at thomaslread.com. For an article about this composer’s workshop, click here.

Read's music projects a consistent and distinctive personal style while embracing a variety of New Music idioms and techniques. Critics, while noting its lyrical qualities, have called his music "substantive and meticulously planned, with a wide expressive range leaving a feeling of rich satisfaction." His seemingly free lyrical forms are the outcome of "compositional strategies that engender multidimensional and fascinatingly equivocal emotional states.” Notable references to particular works in his repertoire include: “the jewel of the evening  was the Boston premiere of Read’s Capricci. ..musical passages shimmered with vibrancy. (J. Wanee Boston Musical Intelligenser); ..[the] “magnificent Piano Partita—one of the finest new American piano pieces”. (Thomas Abbott); Corrente shows “a keen understanding of woodwind instruments.   Read has his own distinctive voice.”( J.Rosen, MLA review); “Sunrise Fable is a very strong piece, worthy of much more frequent performance  by youth orchestras. (New Music Now); “String Quartet no.1 is a strong piece, full of drama and lyricism.” (V.R. Koven Boston Musical Intelligenser.)