Reviews

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• American Academy of Arts and Letters Citation, 1990

  A lyric gift of gentleness yet strong in its articulation, his music sings and weaves its way through sonorities of varying hues and weights. Music as sensitive as his one is grateful for in times when sensibility of any kind seems a risk rather than an endeavor.

• Chamber Music

  SENSUOUS, COLORFUL AND EXPRESSIVE: Thomas works playfully with motives, varying and combining them, allowing them to emerge in changing hues. Thus, the melodic arches, the singing lines which distinguish a fanciful musical medium and make the music warm, even catchy, step forth. —Roland Schmidt, AbendZeitung

• Concerto for Oboe (more info)

  A likable, gracefully neo-Classic score with a great deal of interplay between the oboe and soloists within the orchestra, and some delightfully worked-out counterpoint. —Allan Kozinn, New York Times

  ***

  Full of attractive orchestration and powerful phrases. —Peter Goodman, NY Newsday

• Elegy for a Singer (more info)

  RSO SCORES WITH PREMIERE OF ELEGY. Among the two or three most beautiful works whose first performances I've heard from the RSO. After a century during which the phrase "modern music" was all it took to evacuate most concert halls, this is the kind of piece that should convince average concertgoers that it's safe to go back in the water. A piece unmistakably of its own day, and yet in a triad-based tonal language, it glowed with a radiant beauty. It would be good to hear the Roanoke Symphony do more new music like this. —Seth Williamson, Roanoke Times

  ***

  . . . [An] affecting work, the strings sing a rich, winding melody that goes through several permutations, followed by a contrasting section and a return to the opening melody, but this time slightly altered and more passionately stated. The overall form is clear-cut and simple, but the piece carries a considerable emotional weight—it sounds in places like a Mahler adagio—and its string writing is skillful. —Michael Anthony, Minneapolis Star Tribune

• The Healing Fountain (more info)

  Eloquent and smartly written. —Michael Anthony, Minneapolis Star Tribune

• Rigadoons (more info)

  I can imagine movements such as Furlana and the lively Tambourin becoming firm favourites with concert audiences the world over. Recorder Magazine (London)

  ***

  Thomas has supplied such an abundance of invention and sheer compositional high spirits that the listener's interest never flags. . . An important contribution to performers and audiences alike. —Tim Broege, American Recorder

• Thrum (more info)

  A substantial addition to the catalog of this introspective Twin Cities composer. Thomas's virtues, best exemplified in his leisurely middle movement, are lyrical depth and understated sophistication. He integrates strikingly diverse material without impeding the musical flow. —Larry Fuchsberg, Minneapolis Star Tribune

• Triad (more info)

  [A]n excellent listen. . . this composition makes no secret of its old-fashioned manner of handling material, casting its three sections into clear versions of toccata, passacaglia, and fugue. The most tonally focused work heard tonight—though not always triadic in nature—it manages to avoid mustiness by exhibiting a punchy, tight, memorable manner of speech and emotional sincerity one encounters all too rarely. —David Cleary, New Music Connoisseur (online)

• Waterways (more info)

  AFTERNOON OF MUSIC YIELDS UNEXPECTED TREAT. . . the composer demonstrated more than a little talent for combining sonorities, keeping accompaniment out of the way of featured solo or duet lines, and orchestrating a natural dialogue between his father and sister. From the long and sinuous cello solo that opened the Canal Song to the rushing waters of the Genesee Variants, ideas flowed naturally—and were abundant enough to sustain the 25-minute work. —Robert Palmer, Rochester (NY) Democrat & Chronicle

• Written in the Dust (more info)

  One of the finest examples of literature written for the genre. Contains all the ingredients which make this a masterful, virtuosic work for duet: a brilliant pedal cadenza, "pedal fans" in the outer movements, motives which are started by one player and finished by the other, ranges of motion for each player that cover the keyboards, fast figuration, conversational passing back-and-forth of musical ideas, and elegant, lyrical writing. All combined, they enable Written in the Dust to tell a compelling music story. —Marilyn Biery, The Diapason

• Compelling start to Schubert Club's Summer Song Fest

  A very entertaining evening of songs by composers whose work informed the Schubert Club's early concerts and those who have emerged from Minnesota in recent years. Thanks to the . . . brisk and light-hearted narrative of composers Abbie Betinis and David Evan Thomas—it was a concert that was informative, fun and musically rewarding. —Rob Hubbard, Saint Paul Pioneer Press, 6/10/2008