Thomas Flippin

Thomas Flippin is an original and versatile voice in the world of contemporary music. Whether premiering new works with his pioneering classical guitar ensemble, Duo Noire; performing avant-garde art songs on the theorbo as part of Alicia Hall Moran’s Motown Project; playing otherworldly electric guitar in Heartbeat Opera’s The Extinctionist; or plucking the banjo in the American Repertory Theater’s The Black Clown, Flippin’s playing has been hailed as “lovely” (New York Times), and “spectacularly precise” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch).

Recent concert highlights include: premiering a new double concerto for classical and blues guitars by Chris Brubeck with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, performances at Carnegie Hall with Alicia Hall Moran and Jason Moran, Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival with the American Repertory Theater, the 2022 Guitar Foundation of America Convention, National Sawdust, The Metropolitan Museum, The Cleveland Orchestra, Beijing’s Peking University, the Art Institute of Chicago, and Duo Noire premiering Held Together by Grammy-nominated composer Nathalie Joachim.

Flippin’s 2018 Duo Noire album, Night Triptych, was released on New Focus Recordings as the culmination of a 2015 project he launched through the Diller Quaile School of Music to address the lack of women composers programmed in classical guitar concerts. Featuring new works exclusively by accomplished women composers, it was praised for being a “truly pathbreaking recording” (AllMusic), that is “astounding” for its “sheer musicality” and “goldmine of ideas and feelings” (Stereophile). It was named Editor’s Choice for classical music albums that year by both All Music and I Care if You Listen.

As a composer, recent commissions include a string quartet for the Composing Inclusion joint project by Juilliard, the New York Philharmonic, and the American Composers Forum; the Guitar Foundation of America; The Cleveland Classical Guitar Society in partnership with the Cleveland Orchestra; a guitar orchestra piece for the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University; the Yale School of Music Guitar Department; and the New York City Classical Guitar Orchestra. As a student, Flippin studied composition in courses by David Lang, Martin Bresnick, and Michelle McQuade DeWhirst, with additional lessons with Ingram Marshall and John Anthony Lennon.

Flippin graduated with honors from the University of Chicago, where he received the undergraduate composition prize. He then earned Master of Music and Artist Diploma degrees in guitar performance from the Yale School of Music. His primary guitar teachers were Benjamin Verdery, Denis Azabagic, and Dr. Julie Goldberg. Currently, Flippin is on the guitar faculty at Vassar College in New York, and Gateway Community College in New Haven. He plays Glenn Canin and Martin Blackwell guitars.