Thomas Metcalf

Thomas Metcalf (b. 1996) is a composer and researcher based in Edinburgh. His music explores the generation of musical material through non-musical phenomena, with an increasing focus on hybrid notations and gestural rhetoric.

Thomas began his composition training with Robert Saxton at Oxford in October 2014, Thomas subsequently achieved a first–class BA in Music and an MSt in Composition with distinction as the Ogilvie–Thompson Scholar of Worcester College. Thomas subsequently studied with Kenneth Hesketh in 2020, focusing specifically on graphical methods of compositional design, a process that is present in much of Hesketh’s recent work. In October 2021, he was awarded his DPhil (PhD) from Oxford University, for a thesis entitled Graphical Ekphrasis in Contemporary Music, supported by a research-led composition portfolio.

Thomas’s works have been performed across the UK by ensembles such as the ANIMA Collective, Christ Church Cathedral Choir, GBSR Duo, Psappha, St. Pancras Parish Church Choir, and the Kreutzer Quartet. His international profile is also emerging, with performances, courses, and collaborations in Mexico (Ensamble A Tempo), The Netherlands (Lonelinoise Collective; Brandt Attema), Switzerland (Simone Maffioletti), Spain (Barcelona Modern Composition Course), and Japan (SEED 2021: Remi Miura). Thomas has worked with festivals such as Oxford Lieder Festival (2018), Oxford Chamber Music Festival (2019), and the Vale of Glamorgan Festival (as part of the Peter Reynolds Composers Studio) (2020), International Chamber Music Festival Schiermonnikoog (2021), and Festival Expresiones Contemporáneas (2021).

Thomas’s large-scale string quartet, Pixelating the River, has been recorded by the Kreutzer Quartet for forthcoming release on the Métier label through generous support from the RVW Trust, Finzi Trust, and Oxford Faculty of Music. Other recent releases have included three movements of DISSOLUTION on NMC’s Lockdown Music Survey. Thomas is currently a Young Composer for the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain, with two new works being released on NMC in January 2023.

Thomas is an experienced tutor in many areas of Music. He tutored for Oxford University from 2018-2022 in a variety of papers, and was the first Tutor and Subject Leader in GCSE & A–level Music for Greene’s Tutorial College, Oxford (2019-2022). He was recently appointed to a Krasis Junior Teaching Fellowship at the Ashmolean Museum (2021/2022), and will take up the Junior Anniversary Fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at Edinburgh University from 2022-2023.