Eastman School of Music welcomes back composer Augusta Read Thomas for a spring residency from April 2-4, 2025. The annual Howard Hanson Visiting Professor of Composition offers a range of performances and masterclasses, all over the course of one week, including five events that are free and open to the public.
“We are delighted and honored to welcome Augusta Read Thomas back to Eastman, as the 2025 Howard Hanson Visiting Composer,” shares Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, chair of the Eastman Composition department. “Augusta is one of the most important and influential composers in the world today. She is also a revered teacher and a transformational leader in contemporary musical culture, as the founder and director of the Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition, among many other initiatives. Her residency at Eastman will afford our community the opportunity to hear some of her wonderful compositions.”
In 1994, Thomas became the first woman to serve on Eastman’s composition faculty, a position that she held until 2001. During that time, she also began her nine-year residency as composer-in-residence for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Thomas’s music, according to The Huffington Post is “always in motion, as if coming perpetually out of a magician’s hat. It leads but doesn’t direct, and is playful and subtle, dancing on light feet. It is music that conjures.” Currently, she is a University Professor of Composition in Humanities and the College at The University of Chicago; Vice President for Music at The American Academy of Arts and Letters; on the Board of Directors for The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc.; amid other prominent engagements. Highlighted among her many accomplishments and awards, Thomas has won the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize and was named the 2016 Chicagoan of the Year.
Schedule of Public Events:
- Wednesday, April 2 at 11:00 a.m. in Hatch Recital Hall
Composition Masterclass with Augusta Read Thomas - Wednesday, April 2 at 7:30 p.m. in Kilbourn Hall
The Eastman Wind Ensemble includes Augusta Read Thomas’s Illuminations “Fanfare Sinfonia,” alongside music by Paul Hindemith and Igor Stravinsky. - Thursday, April 3 at 3:30 p.m. in ESM 404
Augusta Read Thomas will speak at the Composition Symposium - Friday, April 4 at 4:30 p.m. in Hatch Recital Hall
An afternoon recital featuring chamber works by Augusta Read Thomas - Friday, April 4 at 7:30 p.m. in Kilbourn Hall
Eastman’s Musica Nova ensemble presents music by Augusta Read Thomas and Pierre Boulez.
“rag paper” by Augusta Read Thomas (2024)
In celebration of the tenure of Eastman’s previous dean Jamal Rossi, Thomas was commissioned to write a piece for him. In May 2024, the world premiere of Bebop Riddle V was performed by saxophonists Anne Kunkle ’16E, ’22E (DMA) & Chien-Kwan Lin ’07E (DMA) in Kilbourn Hall. Also displayed was artwork by the composer representing the piece, “rag paper.”
“The dimensionality, vitality, and radiance of the music-making at Eastman remains profoundly inspiring. Exemplary citizenship, leadership, and personal friendships are treasured by me and by all those who are fortunate to work within and with the members of Eastman’s community and extended family,” shares Thomas. “I am beyond excited to be returning as this year’s Howard Hanson Visiting Professor. This lovely invitation is humbling and a huge honor. I look forward to total-emersion days at Eastman and send gratitude to all.”
This residency is sponsored by the Howard Hanson Institute for American Music and the Eastman Institute for American Music.
Media Only: Lauren Sageer, Assistant Director of Public Relations and Digital Content,
(585) 451-8492, lsageer@esm.rochester.edu
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About Augusta Read Thomas:
The music of Augusta Read Thomas (b. 1964 in New York) is nuanced, majestic, elegant, capricious, lyrical, and colorful — “it is boldly considered music that celebrates the sound of the instruments and reaffirms the vitality of orchestral music” (Philadelphia Inquirer).
A composer featured on a Grammy winning CD by Chanticleer and Pulitzer Prize finalist, Thomas’ impressive body of works “embodies unbridled passion and fierce poetry” (American Academy of Arts and Letters). The New Yorker magazine called her “a true virtuoso composer.” Championed by such luminaries as Barenboim, Rostropovich, Boulez, Eschenbach, Salonen, Maazel, Ozawa, and Knussen, she rose early to the top of her profession. The American Academy of Arts and Letters described Thomas as “one of the most recognizable and widely loved figures in American Music.”
She is a University Professor of Composition in Music and the College at The University of Chicago. Thomas was the longest-serving Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for conductors Daniel Barenboim and Pierre Boulez (1997-2006). This residency culminated in the premiere of Astral Canticle, one of two finalists for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Music. During her residency, Thomas not only premiered nine commissioned orchestral works, but was also central in establishing the thriving MusicNOW series, through which she commissioned and programmed the work of many living composers. For the 2017-2018 concert season, Thomas was the Composer-in-Residence with the Eugene Symphony Orchestra, while Francesco Lecce-Chong served as Music Director and Scott Freck as Executive Director. Thomas was MUSICALIVE Composer-in-Residence with the New Haven Symphony, a national residency program of The League of American Orchestras and Meet the Composer.
Thomas won the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, among many other coveted awards. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Thomas was named the 2016 Chicagoan of the Year.
In 2016, Augusta Read Thomas founded the University of Chicago’s Center for Contemporary Composition, which is a dynamic, collaborative, and interdisciplinary environment for the creation, performance and study of new music and for the advancement of the careers of emerging and established composers, performers, and scholars. Distinguished by its formation within an uncompromising, relentlessly searching, and ceaselessly innovative scholarly environment, which celebrates excellence and presents new possibilities for intellectual dialogue, the Center comprises ten integrated entities: annual concert series featuring the Grossman Ensemble, CHIME, visiting ensembles, distinguished guest composers, performances, recordings, research, student-led projects, workshops and postdoctoral fellowships.
Learn more by visiting her website.
About Eastman School of Music:
The Eastman School of Music was founded in 1921 by industrialist and philanthropist George Eastman (1854–1932), founder of Eastman Kodak Company. It was the first professional school of the University of Rochester. Mr. Eastman’s dream was that his school would provide a broad education in the liberal arts as well as superb musical training.
More than 900 students are enrolled in the Collegiate Division of the Eastman School of Music—about 500 undergraduates and 400 graduate students. They come from almost every state, and approximately 23 percent are from other countries. They are taught by a faculty comprised of more than 170 highly regarded performers, composers, conductors, scholars, and educators. They are Pulitzer Prize winners, Grammy winners, Emmy winners, Guggenheim fellows, ASCAP Award recipients, published authors, recording artists, and acclaimed musicians who have performed in the world’s greatest concert halls. Each year, Eastman’s students, faculty members, and guest artists present more than 900 concerts to the Rochester community. Additionally, more than 1,700 members of the Rochester community, from young children through senior citizens, are enrolled in the Eastman Community Music School.
About the University of Rochester:
The University of Rochester is one of the nation’s leading private research universities, one of only 62-member institutions in the Association of American Universities. Located in Rochester, N.Y., the University gives undergraduates exceptional opportunities for interdisciplinary study and close collaboration with faculty through its unique cluster-based curriculum. Its College, School of Arts and Sciences, and Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences are complemented by the Eastman School of Music, Simon School of Business, Warner School of Education, Laboratory for Laser Energetics, School of Medicine and Dentistry, School of Nursing, Eastman Institute for Oral Health, and the Memorial Art Gallery.