Augusta Read Thomas is one of the most critically acclaimed, important, and widely performed composers working today. According to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, she “has become one of the most recognizable and widely loved figures in American Music.” Thomas was the longest-serving Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony, for Barenboim and Boulez, from 1997 through 2006. This residency culminated in the premiere of Astral Canticle, one of two finalists for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Music. She has won the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, among many other coveted awards. Augusta is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Her music 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). The New Yorker Magazine called Augusta “a true virtuoso composer.” Donald Rosenberg of Gramophone wrote, “Heart and soul in the breathtaking music of a thoughtful contemporary composer reveals a lively, probing mind allied to a beating heart.”
Augusta founded and directs the Center for Contemporary Composition and the Grossman Ensemble at the University of Chicago. Her compositions are released on over 94 commercial recordings. Selected recent commissions include those from the BBC Proms, Boston Symphony, Philharmonie de Paris, New York Philharmonic, Sejong Soloists, the Lahti Symphony Orchestra, The Swedish Chamber Orchestra, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, NOIS Saxophone Quartet, Quartet Diotima, National Cathedral Chorus, Santa Fe Opera, Utah Symphony, Juilliard School, Orchestra de Chambre de Paris, Peak Performances with Martha Graham Dance Company, Indianapolis Symphony, Tanglewood Music Festival, Wigmore Hall, Third Coast Percussion, and Aspen Music Festival.
