About
Helen Thomas
━ Helen Thomas
Conductor
Helen was encouraged and inspired to conduct when she attended a Royal Philharmonic Society short course for women conductors led by Alice Farnham. She went on to study conducting at Sherborne Summer School (2018 & 2019) with Rodolfo Saglimbeni and John Longstaff. In 2019 she completed the RNCM Conducting Course for Music Educators, tutored by Mark Heron, where she had the opportunity to conduct the Hallé Youth Orchestra. She is currently studying conducting privately with Helen Harrison.
In 2018 Helen was appointed conductor of Chester Sinfonia, a community orchestra which has more than trebled in size under her direction and has developed a reputation as one of the friendliest orchestras in the region. Recent highlights with Chester Sinfonia include a performance in the furniture department of John Lewis, Chester; an annual picnic concert at St Columba’s Church, Chester; and a Christmas Concert at Dee Banks School for children with profound and multiple needs.
Since 2019, Helen has been a tutor for the wind and chamber music courses at the Workers’ Music Association Summer School. She enjoys arranging repertoire specifically for these courses and also leads an annual Sound Walk in the grounds of Ingestre Hall.
In 2023 she was invited to conduct two concerts with Hope Metropolitan Orchestra in Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral and St Bride’s Church, Liverpool. Following the success of these concerts she has been appointed Associate Conductor. She is also a regular guest conductor with Wirral Symphony Orchestra where she recently helped the orchestra prepare Bruckner’s Symphony no. 9.
In addition to a wide-ranging knowledge of the Western Classical Tradition, Helen has a strong interest in historic and contemporary works by women composers and has conducted pieces by Ella Beardsall, Louise Bertin, Harriet Blaney-Green, Cecile Chaminade, Alice Mary Smith and Maria Theresia von Paradis. In Spring 2024 she conducted the world premiere performances of Rebekah Okpoti’s Adelaide Watt in the Anglican Cathedral, Liverpool and Lancaster Priory.
Alongside conducting, Helen is an accomplished oboist, oboe d’amore and cor anglais player. She has gained a PhD with a thesis on Metaphors of Temporality in Avant-Garde Music of the 1960s (Lancaster University) and a Masters (with Distinction) in Music since 1900 (Liverpool Hope University). For ten years she worked for Oxford University Press promoting the works of Gerald Barry, Michael Finnissy, John Rutter and others throughout Europe. As Artistic Coordinator and Public Engagement Officer at the University of Liverpool she developed the popular, public Lunchtime Concert Series and was instrumental in the launch of The Tung Auditorium in 2022. In 2023 she was appointed a Trustee of Mahogany Opera.
Oboist
Helen began playing the oboe at school where she had lessons with Anne Jubb and later Eric Fletcher of the Hallé. She soon joined Stockport Youth Orchestra with whom she went on to tour Germany, performing the Mozart Oboe Concerto. She performed Mozart’s Oboe Quartet in the National Chamber Music Festival for Schools, alongside her violinist sister Carole, reaching the final which brought with it a masterclass from Lady Evelyn Barbirolli and a performance at St John’s Smith Square, London.
Whilst reading Music at the University of York Helen developed a love of contemporary music, performing works by Steve Reich, Harrison Birtwistle and many of her contemporaries. She also explored Baroque and Classical music and borrowed a boxwood oboe made by J. Bradbury in 1710 from the York Museum which she was given to take home wrapped in a towel and packed in a shoebox!
After graduating and moving to London to work for the Incorporated Society of Musicians and then Oxford University Press, Helen quickly found playing with North London Symphony Orchestra and Westminster Philharmonic. She also enjoyed weekends of chamber music with a collective of friends on the south coast.
Since moving back to the North West of England, Helen has become a regular player with Liverpool Bach Collective, Liverpool Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra dell’Arte, St John’s Festival Orchestra, Wirral Orchestra and Wirral Symphony Orchestra. Solo work includes concertos by Albinoni, Donizetti, and Marcello as well Sibelius’s The Swan of Tuonela. She has performed solo recitals at the Victoria Gallery & Museum, Liverpool, and St John’s Church, Chester, with pianist Catherine Moon.
After completing a PhD, she longed for the practicalities of making music again and went to Jonathan Small, former Principal Oboist of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, for lessons. He helped to develop her sound and technique and introduced her to oboes manufactured by Püchner. She is now very fortunate to play an oboe, oboe d’amore and cor anglais made for her by Püchner and relishes the varied colours that these instruments produce.
Academic
Helen has a BA (Hons) in Music from the University of York where she developed a passion for contemporary music, running the Music Department’s New Music Ensemble and performing the role of the Fair Sister in Harrison Birtwistle’s Bow Down in the presence of the composer.
After a decade working for Oxford University Press, a growing academic interest in music led to the completion of an MA in Music since 1900 (with Distinction) at Liverpool Hope University which included delving into Experimental Music and the music of Stockhausen under the guidance of Robin Hartwell.
In 2012 she completed a doctoral thesis, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, at Lancaster University entitled 'Disturbing Times - metaphors of temporality in avant-garde music of the 1960s'. This research aimed to find patterns of metaphors that replaced the conventional MUSIC AS JOURNEY metaphor that has long been in use to describe the Western Classical Tradition. Her inter-disciplinary approach combined linguistic methodologies to analyse composers’ own words with music analysis.
Helen was then appointed Research Associate (Music) at Newcastle University to lead the Music strand of Ageing Creatively, a cross-arts project funded by the Medical Research Council. Members of the public were invited as co-researchers to explore how participation in workshops in music, literature and the visual arts might create benefits or adverse effects to physical and mental health in later life.
From 2013-2015 she was a Lecturer in the Lancaster Institute of Contemporary Arts at Lancaster University where she developed and delivered modules in Arts, Health and Wellbeing, Creative Enterprise, The Hollywood Musical, Music and Advertising, Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Work Experience as well as supervising undergraduate dissertations. She also gained a Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy.
From 2015-2022 Helen worked in the School of the Arts at the University of Liverpool as a Lecturer in Music, Module Leader for Work Placements, and Artistic Coordinator and Public Engagement Officer. She ran the popular Lunchtime Concert series, was Relationship Manager for partnerships with the National Youth Orchestra Inspire programme, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Solem Quartet and was Nominated for University Staff Award for Partnerships in 2018. In the last few years she was part of the team that led the development of The Tung Auditorium, the University of Liverpool’s state-of-the-art concert hall, from first proposal to launch in March 2022.
Helen is part of the Editorial and Production Team for the Workers’ Music Association Bulletin and has recently started a blog on her website that explores musical silences: their context and potential meanings.
Music Promotion
Throughout her varied career Helen has worked to convey her enthusiasm for classical music to a wider public. From 1986-1988 She ran The Music Party, a pioneering organisation set up by clarinettist and basset horn player Alan Hacker for the performance of 18th and early 19th century music on original instruments, taking them on tour to Milan and arranging commercial recordings.
In 1987 Helen landed a job in the Repertoire Promotion Department at Oxford University Press where she spent a decade as a cultural intermediary promoting the music of composers including Eleanor Alberga, Gerald Barry, Martin Butler, Michael Finnissy, John Rutter, Howard Skempton, Ralph Vaughan Williams and William Walton, to performers, broadcasters, festival directors and record producers worldwide.
Subsequently family commitments were combined with running the Manchester-based new music group Psappha, study for the City & Guilds’ Further Education Teaching Certificate, and teaching music theory and music appreciation classes in the community including in care homes and day centres for the Workers’ Educational Association.
Whilst studying for an MA in Music since 1900 at Liverpool Hope University, she managed The Cornerstone Festival alongside its founder and Artistic Director, Professor Stephen Pratt. They grew the festival into a three-week extravaganza which showcased new work across the arts including the première of John Godber’s play Sold (2007) about sex-trafficking, a performance that was subsequently referenced in a House of Lords debate on the subject.
In 2016, Helen was invited to run the Lunchtime Concert Series at the Victoria Gallery and Museum for the University of Liverpool. Together with a team of students on work-placement each year, she developed an immensely popular programme of free, public concerts that employed local, professional musicians performing music connected to undergraduate and postgraduate teaching topics as well as postgraduate and staff research. In 2022 the Lunchtime Concerts successfully transferred to the newly opened Tung Auditorium. Helen also initiated a monthly series of Relaxed Concerts at the Victoria Gallery and Museum’s Waterhouse Café which gives students opportunities to perform for members of the public.
In 2022 Helen was appointed a Trustee of Mahogany Opera, a leading commissioner and producer of new opera and music theatre which aims to stretch the boundaries of what opera can be and who it is for.