Richard Pearson Thomas is recognized as a gifted composer of concert and theater music.

Richard Pearson Thomas, composer and pianist, has had works performed by the Boston Pops, Covent Garden Festival, Houston Grand Opera, Chautauqua Opera, Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, Banff Centre, Skylight Opera Theatre, and Riverside Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir. His songs have been sung in Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Wigmore Hall, Joe?s Pub, and before the U.S. Congress by artists such as Audra McDonald, Sanford Sylvan, Lauren Flanagan and Kurt Ollmann. He is a recipient of an American Composers Forum Continental Harmony commission for the Alabama Tri-State Orchestra. His work Race for the Sky, which was commissioned as a commemoration of the events of 9/11, has been performed by the Westchester Philharmonic Orchestra and in recitals nationwide.
Mr. Thomas's musical Parallel Lives was produced Off-Off Broadway by the Riverside Opera Ensemble, as was Ladies in a Maze, produced by Encompass Music Theatre. His musical Golden Gate is winner of the Michael Stewart Foundation Award, and his original music for In Thinking of America: Songs of the Civil War has been heard in more than 140 cities.
Mr. Thomas is currently on faculty at Teachers College/Columbia University and has taught at Yale. He is composer-in-residence of the Gold Opera Project, Young Audiences/New York. In that capacity, he has composed more than 80 operas with students in New York City public schools. His work with children was featured on CBS' The Early Show, and singled out for praise by President Clinton when Young Audiences/New York was awarded the National Medal of Arts. Additionally, Mr. Thomas has concertized with singers worldwide.
He is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music and the University of Southern California, and is a native of Montana.