David Evan Thomas has been honored with a Citation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a McKnight Foundation fellowship and the Möller-A.G.O. Award in Choral Composition. A native of Rochester, New York, Thomas attended Northwestern University, the Eastman School of Music and the University of Minnesota, where his principal teachers in composition were Dominick Argento, Samuel Adler and Alan Stout.

Thomas’s catalogue includes music for orchestra, two dozen chamber works, eleven song cycles, a chamber opera and many choral pieces. His music has been performed by the Minnesota Orchestra, Rosalyra Quartet, Westminster Cathedral Choir, and the trio of Gil Shaham, Truls Mørk and Yefim Bronfman.

Thomas’s friendship with organists James and Marilyn Biery has resulted in concert music for organ solo and duet and three volumes of service music. A commission for the 2005 A.G.O. Region VIII convention led to a collaboration with noted poet Brian Wren, and a Twin Cities A.G.O. commission in 2000 produced Canticle of the Sun for soprano and organ.

From 2003-2005, Thomas was composer-in-residence with Westminster Presbyterian Church, Minneapolis and the Cathedral of Saint Paul through the American Composers Forum’s Faith Partners program; the music from that residency has been published by ECS, MorningStar and Augsburg Fortress. From 1997-2005 Thomas served as composer-in-residence for The Schubert Club of Saint Paul. He now lives in Minneapolis.