Thomas, Adrian (EN)

Thomas Adrian, *11 June 1947 Penzance (Cornwall), British musicologist, composer and conductor. He studied at the Universities of Nottingham and Cardiff and at the Academy of Music in Kraków under the supervision of such teachers as D. Arnold, B. Deane, I. Keys, B. Schaeffer and A. Whittall. Thomas began composing while studying at school and at university. In 1968, he came into contact with the music of W. Lutosławski, which not only directed his interest towards Polish contemporary music, but also influenced his own work. In his final year at the University of Nottingham, on 25 June 1969, together with D. Goodhew and the university choral and orchestral ensemble, he conducted the first British performance of Trois poèmes d’Henri Michaux by W. Lutosławski. His interest in Polish music led him to study in Kraków from then on, conducting increasingly intensive research on the work of Polish composers, while at the same time promoting their music in Great Britain.

After graduating, Thomas worked as a lecturer at Queens University, Belfast, where in 1985, he became the youngest professor of music in the UK; in 1975, he opened a small electronics studio there, which over the years developed into an internationally renowned studio, the Sonic Arts Research Centre. In Belfast, Thomas continued to promote Polish music, leading performances (also the first in the UK) of works by Polish composers, including Stabat Mater (in Polish), Veni Creator and Litany to the Virgin Mary by K. Szymanowski, Three Pieces in the Old Style and Harpsichord Concerto by H.M. Górecki, Orawa by W. Kilar, Variations on a Theme of Paganini for piano and orchestra, and Preludes and Fugue by Lutosławski. As a pianist, he has taken part in chamber performances of compositions by, among others, W. Szalonek (Improvisations sonoristiques, Mutanza), H.M. Górecki (Muzyczka IV), A. Dobrowolski (Krabogapa), and Z. Krauze (Polichromia).

In 1996, Thomas became a professor of music at Cardiff University (Wales). While working at this university, together with the Contemporary Music Group, a group from the music department there, he prepared and conducted several concerts of Polish music, including a concert dedicated to the music of H.M. Górecki (repeated in Bath, 1997) and a programme consisting of works by B. Schaeffer, Z. Krauze, W. Szalonek, T. Sikorski, P. Mykietyn, H. Kulenta and L. Zielińska (2005). In 2003–06, he was the chairman of the music department at Gresham College in London, where he lectured on Polish music from the Middle Ages to the present; he was subsequently awarded the title of professor emeritus of that university; he was awarded a similar title by Cardiff University after his retirement in 2010.

Thomas was also active as a radio journalist for many years. In 1976, he began working on BBC Radio 3 music magazine, then for five years he was a presenter of the weekend arts programme on Radio Ulster. In the late 1980s, he chaired the BBC Radio Central Music Advisory Committee and was also a member of the BBC General Advisory Council. In 1990, he became Music Director of BBC Radio 3 in London, responsible for music and music-related programmes, including BBC Orchestra programmes and foreign recordings; on his initiative, in 1993 BBC Radio 3 organised the “Polska!” festival, covering the whole of Great Britain and presenting Polish art and culture – with particular emphasis on honouring the 80^th birthday of W. Lutosławski and the 60^th birthdays of K. Penderecki and H.M. Górecki.

Thomas is an internationally recognised authority on Polish music, author of numerous texts on Polish contemporary music, including books on the music of G. Bacewicz, H. M. Górecki and Polish music since the time of K. Szymanowski. He has participated in numerous conferences, seminars and workshops in Europe, the United States and Australia. In 1997, as part of the “Breaking Chains” festival at the Barbican Centre in London, he prepared the exhibition The Hidden Composer: Witold Lutosławski and Polish Radio, and also led open workshops on two versions of Lutosławski’s Jeux vénitiens with a chamber ensemble of doctoral students from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (he had discovered the lost first version of the piece a year earlier). He was also the first to undertake research on Lutosławski’s mass songs and songs written under the pseudonym Derwid. He has hosted numerous radio broadcasts, lectures before concerts with music by Polish composers, and has also appeared on Polish radio and television. He was particularly interested in Polish music from the first post-war decade, which he called the “dark decade: 1945–55” due to political conditions.

Thanks to the composition scholarships he received, he spent time in 1983, 1986 and 1987 at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, and in 1987 at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in Amherst, Virginia. Many of Thomas’s compositions have been broadcast by BBC Radio 3 and radio stations in Belfast, Dublin, New York, and Cincinnati, among others. His Intrada for orchestra (1981) was performed several times in 1992 in the United States during the Ulster Orchestra’s tour, and the world premiere of his piece even’s for harp took place in 1976 at the Warsaw Autumn Festival. Polish inspirations are often evident in Thomas’s works, including: Mazurka for cello and piano (1979), Polish Lullaby for a cappella choir, with lyrics by J. Słowacki (1983), and Black Rainbow for 8-voice choir, commissioned by the BBC (1981–89, to words by S. Młodożeniec, J. Czechowicz, J. Kasprowicz and A. Malczewski), commemorating the loss of civil liberties during martial law in Poland. Other compositions by Thomas include in wild quiet for septet (1980, revised 1982), this turning tree for tenor and piano (1980), Aeolian Sanctus for a cappella choir and guitar (1988), and inspired by Japanese poetry and Zen Buddhist philosophy, busonku for septet (1978), Rau for string octet (1985), and Kuo-an Variations for solo viola (1988). Thomas was a member of the British Honorary Committee for the Chopin Year 2010 and the Honorary Committee for the Lutosławski Year 2013, based in Warsaw. He is a member of the advisory panel on 20^th century music for Cambridge University Studies in Musicology, Peter Lang Publishing House, and of the scientific council of the Polish Music Yearbook. In 2015, he was a member of the Honorary Committee for the 70^th anniversary of the PWM Edition.

For his work in promoting Polish music, he received the ZKP award (1989), the badge of merit for Polish culture (1996) and the medal of the W. Lutosławski Society twice (2005 and 2013, on the centenary of the composer’s birth). In 2013, the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland honoured Thomas with the Gold Medal Gloria Artis.

He lives in Cornwall. For many years, he ran the website onpolishmusic.com, where he published many of his own articles and texts devoted to Polish music. It is an extensive authorial database of knowledge about Polish 20^th-century music, available in English. In 2016, Thomas withdrew from public activities to focus on projects unrelated to music.

Literature: Tętno życia, podniebny spokój, “Tygodnik Powszechny”, 2010 no. 47; Był na czele peletonu, interview of B. Bolesławska-Lewandowska with Thomas about H.M. Górecki, “Ruch Muzyczny” 2011 no. 3; Gry brytyjskie, interview of K. Komarnicki with Thomas about W. Lutosławski, “Muzyka w Mieście” (MWM) 2013 no. 1–2; Thomas’s website: www.onpolishmusic.com.