About
Tom started playing percussion and taking lessons with Robert Miller in the 5th grade in Bowie, Maryland. At age 12, Tom moved to Macomb, Illinois and played in school concert, jazz, and marching bands, while taking private lessons at Western Illinois University with Dr. Richard Cheadle.
Tom was a percussion major at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois where he studied with Robert Bankert of the Peoria Symphony. During the summers, Tom studied with Skip Hadden (Weather Report, Dewey Redman, Jimmy Smith) at the Berklee College of Music.
Tom graduated
with a master’s degree in Percussion Performance
from the New England Conservatory of Music where he studied with Frank Epstein of the Boston Symphony. Tom is also an alumnus of the Aspen Music Festival where he spent 3 summers studying with Tom Stubbs of the St. Louis Symphony in the early 1990’s.
Tom has been Principal Percussionist with Orchestra Iowa since 1992, Section Percussionist with the Des Moines Symphony since 2000, Timpanist with the Cedar Rapids Municipal Band since 1995 and has over 50 students currently. Tom has also performed with the Quad City Symphony, the Omaha Symphony, the Joffrey Ballet, the American Ballet and has performed with Yo-Yo Ma, Wynton Marsalis, Branford Marsalis, Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith, Itzhak Perlman, Joshua Bell, the Moody Blues, Harry Connick Jr. and many more. Additionally, Tom is a well-rounded drummer having played for Carnival Cruise Lines and many local jazz, rock and blues artists in Eastern Iowa such as the Bad Actors, Tribute, Eddie Piccard, Dennis McMurrin, Kevin BF Burt, Amy Friedl Stoner, Alisabeth Von Presley, Carol Montag and many others . Since 1996, Tom has had at least one student annually selected for the Iowa All-State Music Festival and Iowa All-State Jazz - a total of over 45 students have achieved this honor. Tom is an adjunct faculty member at Coe College, Cornell College and Mt. Mercy University and teaches the pit/front ensembles at Kennedy and Linn-Mar High Schools in Cedar Rapids.