Thomas Kociela can be reached at TGKociela@gmail.com

Conductor Thomas Kociela has led the Rhode Island College Symphony Orchestra for the past four years—a role which necessitates bringing together RIC students, talented volunteers, RIC graduates, RIC faculty, and professional musicians. He is proud to have been recognized for leading exciting and high-quality performances and to have brought back a chorus/orchestra collaboration to RIC. Recent seasons have featured performances of major symphonic works by Brahms, Farrenc, Schumann, Beethoven, Debussy, Tchaikovsky, Magnard, and Holst, among many others. He has enjoyed getting to know many enthusiastic audience members during the intermission of each performance he has conducted!

Thomas is currently the Music Director of the Parkway Concert Orchestra (Norwood, MA) and Conductor of the Falmouth Chamber Players Orchestra. In addition, he is also the Resident Multi-Camera Video Director at Symphony Hall in Boston. 

In recent years, Thomas is grateful for opportunities to have collaborated with acclaimed concert artists with a number of orchestras, including tenor David Rivera-Bozon, trumpeter Dovas Lietuvninkas, soprano Aurora Martin, clarinetist Sangwon Lee, soprano Allyson Bennett, violinist Gigi Turgeon, bassist Moisés Carrasco, violist Scott Woolweaver, pianist Jacob Hiser, and violinist Joshua Brown, among others. 

Thomas is excited to have been invited to conduct the Narragansett Bay Symphony Orchestra on June 7—in a program featuring Sibelius’s Symphony No. 1, piano soloist Gideon Rubin performing Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto, and a little-known work by Grofé titled Ode to “The Star-Spangled Banner” to celebrate the United States Semiquincentennial (America 250).

Thomas is the former Music Director of the Lowell Philharmonic Orchestra, where he received an Official Citation by Lowell Mayor Sokhary Chau.  The citation reads in part “Thomas Kociela has fully dedicated himself to bringing people together through music”.  Highlights from Thomas’s tenure include musical programs featuring the Cambodian community, the Greek community, as well as during the pandemic with the help of prominent civic leaders he created and presented – More Than Self, A Tribute to the Nurses, Doctors and Staff at Lowell General Hospital.  This special was highlighted by the League of American Orchestras and the International Conductors Guild.

As a performer, Thomas performed as a substitute musician with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) for seven years.  He has shared the stage with conductors and artists such as Bernard Haitink, Michael Tilson Thomas, James Conlon, Yo-Yo Ma, Michelle DeYoung, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, David Robertson, Sir James Galway, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Sir Mark Elder, Edwin Outwater, Alastair Willis, and Sir Patrick Stewart. Thomas traveled to Carnegie Hall on tour with the CSO three times, performing under Pierre Boulez and Riccardo Muti – and once to Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor with the CSO. He also performed with the CSO for Festa Muti! A Free Concert for Chicago in Millennium Park (Muti’s first concert as Music Director). Thomas has also performed with the Ars Viva Symphony, Chicago Composers Orchestra, Kenosha Symphony, Racine Symphony, West Michigan Symphony, and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, among others.

While in Chicago, Thomas was the assistant conductor at the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras, and he conducted ensembles at the University of Chicago and the Chicago High School for the Arts. He also served as the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra’s Pathways Neighborhood Ensembles Music Director, designing and implementing ensemble and private lesson programs at underserved schools around Chicago.

Thomas earned a master’s degree in conducting from the New England Conservatory of Music and a bachelor’s degree in performance and music education from the Chicago College of Performing Arts studying under Jay Friedman and Charles Groeling respectively. He has pursued additional studies and masterclasses with conductor pedagogues Neil Thomson, Neil Varon, Victor Yampolsky, Cristian Măcelaru, Robert Franz, Markand Thakar, David Jacobs, Erin Freeman, and Donald Schleicher.

Contact Thomas Kociela: TGKociela@gmail.com