About
‘The work of Thomas Meadowcroft crosses worlds, embracing notated compositions for orchestras, acoustic instruments and electronics, and music for radio and theater. His music’s surface beauty is ambiguous, even ambivalent. Its ideas are provocative, but the music can be laugh-out-loud funny. It tells stories that are personal, but these stories are distanced — meaning can be made only by the listener. And, at times we just simply drift, unmoored, his slowly changing harmonies living in the fuzzy middle between tension and resolution. Perhaps we might give up some measure of control, some of our insistence on “where is this going?” This music isn’t in a hurry, so perhaps we shouldn’t be either.’
Tim Munro — Chicago, April 2022
Thomas Meadowcroft composes music for the concert hall, theater and radio. Thomas has worked with a variety of orchestras and ensembles, including Basel Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, the German Film Orchestra Babelsberg, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Mädchenchor der Sing-Akademie zu Berlin, members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, members of the South West German Radio Big Band and Symphony Orchestra. In particular, he shares long standing collaborations with Australia’s ‘Speak Percussion’, and the New York ensemble ‘Yarn/Wire’. Thomas’ chamber music has been presented at various international festivals and concert series including Miller Theater and Chamber Music Society of the Lincoln Center (NYC), Lucerne Festival, Maerzmusik (Berlin), and Monday Evening Concerts (Los Angeles).
Thomas’ music employs a diverse range of musical techniques and styles depending upon context and format. Consequently, ‘memory is coming at us from several different removes’ (Paul Griffiths). This is exemplified in pieces such as The News in Music (2017) for symphony orchestra, which examines TV news music and orchestral music in the service of power, Another Children’s Television (2022), a collection of library music for lost children’s television programmes from the 1970’s, and, Hollywood Parsifals (2026) where sound effects artists function as orchestral soloists. His music has been described as ‘reaching an inexpressible purity’ (Le Monde), ‘dreamy post-rock’ (The New York Times), ‘never-ending, sugar-sweet’ (Neue Zürcher Zeitung) and ‘hauntingly beautiful’ (The Sydney Morning Herald).
Thomas completed postgraduate studies in composition with George Crumb at the University of Pennsylvania, USA and his music is released on Mode Records, New York and Sofa Music, Oslo. He has lived in Berlin since 1998 and has undertaken artist residencies in Paris, Los Angeles, Sydney and regional Australia.