Composer and violinist Tommy Dougherty (b. 1990) is a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and is a composer of orchestral, chamber, and solo works.
In 2023, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s will premiere a new work by Tommy through his participation in the DeGaetano Composition Institute where he is working closely with mentor composer Anna Clyne. Tommy is in residence at the Winterthur Museum as a Maker-Creator Fellowship Scholar. In 2021, Tommy received a joint commission from the Johnstown Symphony Orchestra and Laurel Arts to compose a work as a tribute to the people of Somerset for the 20th Anniversary of September 11th. He has since been commissioned to write a new work for the JSO’s 2022-2023 season finale.
Over the past several years, his music has been performed by the American Composers Orchestra, the Modern Violin Ensemble (MoVE), Alarm Will Sound, the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra, Kinetic: The Conductorless Ensemble, Thornton School Symphony Orchestra, Shepherd School Symphony Orchestra, and Eastman Philharmonia.
In 2019, Tommy was the recipient of the ASCAP Leo Kaplan Award, and in 2016 and 2017, two ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Awards. In 2018, the Modern Violin Ensemble (MoVE) premiered Extraordinary Instruments, a violin quartet that aims to bring awareness to issues of gun culture in the United States.
As a violinist, Tommy currently serves as Acting Section Violin with the San Diego Symphony and has performed with the Pacific Symphony, Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra in Los Angeles, CA and Kinetic: The Conductorless Ensemble in Houston, TX.
In 2019 he completed his DMA in composition at the USC Thornton School of Music where he studied privately with Andrew Norman and Sean Friar. Tommy received his Master of Music degree in composition from Rice University’s Shepherd School of music and his Bachelor’s degrees in both composition and violin performance from the Eastman School of Music.
Throughout his compositional studies, Tommy has worked privately with Karim Al-Zand, Arthur Gottschalk, David Liptak, Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, Bob Morris, Leonardo Balada, and Efrain Amaya. His primary violin teachers include Lina Bahn, Ayano Ninomiya, Lynn Blakeslee, and Hong-Guang Jia.
