Senior Director of Strategy and Engagement
Senior Director of Strategy and Engagement
Thomas graduated from the University of Warwick having studied English Literature with honours. As a musician, he quickly fell into teaching where he spent nine years teaching music and drama and five specifically in a low decile school in South Bristol. It was at this school where Thomas transformed the music department making music part of the culture of South Bristol, building new orchestras, choirs, other ensembles and opening a regional Saturday Music Centre in association with Bristol Plays Music. For this work, he was awarded the National Best Music Department 2016.
Alongside this Thomas worked on a variety of governmental projects with Arts Community Interest Company Superact, and was first published with a training guide on for a qualification that took arts across Europe called Supporting Employability and Personal Effectiveness. He has since contributed to several other study guides in relation to centenary commemorations of the First World War and the Big Ideas Company’s Living Memory project. In this time Thomas also ran a national competition to perform of the Olympic Park Bandstand at the end of the Paralympics in London 2012 where an arrangement he completed of Coldplay’s 'Viva La Vida' was performed simultaneously around the country to mark the ending of the Cultural Olympiad in the UK.
From January 2017 he moved to New Zealand to use his transferrable skills as the Senior Director of Strategy and Engagement with the Auckland Philharmonia.