BIOGRAPHY
Thomas Metcalf (b. 1996) is a composer and researcher. His music explores how images, texts, and randomness can affect structure and form, with an increasing focus on our relationship with modernity.
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) with a recent work for soundfestival (2022).
Thomas’s large-scale string quartet, Pixelating the River, has been recorded by the Kreutzer Quartet for 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 was a Young Composer for the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain, with two new works being released on NMC in January 2023, with this album given four stars in BBC Music Magazine. His solo piano work, Arrays, was Highly Commended for the RMA’s Tippett Medal for Composition.
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 appointed to a Krasis Junior Teaching Fellowship at the Ashmolean Museum (2021/2022), and is was the Junior Anniversary Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at Edinburgh University from 2022-2023. Thomas is particularly keen on interdisciplinary work, and in January 2023 was appointed as a Committee Member for the Association of Art History’s Doctoral and Early Career Research Network.
In October 2024, Thomas will join New College, Oxford, as the Christopher Cox Junior Research Fellow, pursuing his monograph and new composition projects.
Brief CV
Education
Worcester College, University of Oxford
2018 - 2021 | Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil), Music:
Supervisors: Prof. Jonathan Cross; Prof. Robert Saxton
Passed, no corrections (external: Prof. Camden Reeves); awarded October 2021
2017 - 2018 | Master of Studies (MSt), Music: Distinction
2014 - 2017 | Bachelor of Arts (BA), Music: First-Class Honours
Research Projects
2024 - 2027 | Listen to the Creaking Frame, New College, Oxford
2022 – 2023 | Photography and/as Music, IASH, Edinburgh
2020 – 2021 |‘Pixelating the River’: Engagement with Contemporary Music through Graphical Ekphrasis, TORCH, Oxford
Teaching Experience
Experienced tutor from GCSE to postgraduate level in a variety of topics and disciplines.
Selected Academic Awards
2023 | Susan Manning Workshop Award, IASH
2022 | Development Fund, Soceity for Music Analysis; Junior Anniversary Fellowship, IASH; Research Support Grant, Faculty of Music, Oxford
2021 | Graduate Research Award, Faculty of Music, Oxford
2018 | John Lowell Osgood Travelling Scholarship, Faculty of Music, Oxford
2017 | Ogilvie Thompson Scholarship, Worcester College, Oxford
2014-2017 | Instrumental Scholarship, Worcester College, Oxford
Composition Awards
2023 | Tippett Medal (Honourable Mention), Royal Musical Association
2022 | Young Musicians Fund, Finzi Trust, London
2021 | New Music Generation 2021 (2nd Prize), Kazakhstan University of the Arts; Project Grant, RVW Trust, London; Mobility Grant, i-Portunus, Goethe Institut, Brussels; Young Composers Award (Finalist), Benslow Music, Hitchin
2020 | Composers Award, Horizon Voices, London; Lord Mayor’s Composition Prize (Highly Commended), Worshipful Company of Musicians, London
2019 | Composition Prize, Oxford University Music Society
2018 | Composition Prize, Christ Church College, Oxford
Publications and other outputs can be found at Research.