The American pianist and conductor Thomas Wise graduated from the Interlochen Arts Academy in his native Michigan. He received Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from The Juilliard School in New York, where he was a scholarship pupil of György Sándor. A Fulbright Fellowship to Germany brought him to study with Aloys Kontarsky in Cologne, where he finished his studies with the Konzertexamen degree. Further piano studies then followed with Peter Feuchtwanger in London. He attended the conducting masterclass of Finnish master-teacher Jorma Panula.
Thomas’ extensive experience as a performer brought him to the Royal Albert Hall in London, New York’s Carnegie Recital Hall, the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona, the Liederhalle in Stuttgart, the Konzerthaus in Berlin, Munich’s Herkulessaal as well as many other important venues including the music festivals of Cologne, Dresden, Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, Ludwigsburg and Montepulciano.
Thomas appears as a recording artist for the Arte Nova/BMG, Genuin, Hänssler Classic, and Capriccio labels playing Beethoven, Debussy, Duparc, Ibert, Piazzola, Ravel, and Schubert. The WDR, BR, MDR, SRF, and DeutschlandRadio radio stations have invited Thomas to record works of Albeniz, Chopin, Ives, Reto Stadelmann, and Kurt Weill.
Highlights of his wide-ranging piano repertoire include the Goldberg-Variations of Bach, the 32 Beethoven Sonatas, the major works of Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, and Ravel in addition to 35 piano concertos. He has performed 20th century compositions by Barber, Bartók, Berio, Boulez, Copland, Milhaud, Stockhausen, and Stravinsky, and has given the world premieres of pieces by Jherek Bischoff, Bojidar Dimov, Hanns Koch, Antonio Fernandez Ros, Steffen Schleiermacher, and first recordings of works by Joseph Lauber, Manfred Trojahn and Charles Ives.
Thomas’ performed opera repertoire includes over 30 conducted works, reaching from John Blow to George Benjamin, encompassing major works of Adés, Beethoven, Händel, Hindemith, Massenet, Mozart, Puccini, Tschaikovsky, Verdi, and many more. After positions at the Hamburg State Opera and Bonn Opera he is presently conductor and director of the music department at Theater Basel. He has conducted the Beethovenorchester Bonn, the WDR Rundfunkorchester, the Norwegian National Opera, the Basel Sinfonietta, as well as the Sinfonieorchester Basel.
Opera repertoire
Ades – Powder Her Face
Beethoven – Fidelio
Bellini – La Sonnambula
Benatzky – Im Weißen Rössl
Berg – Lulu, Wozzeck
Berio – La Vera Storia
Bernstein – Candide
Bizet – Carmen
Bizet – Les Pecheurs des Perles
Bock – Fiddler on the Roof
Britten – A Midsummernight´s Dream
Delibes – Lakmé
Donizetti – Don Pasquale, L´Elisir d´Amore, Lucia di Lammermoor
Dvorak – Rusalka
Gluck – Orfée et Euridice
Gounod – Faust
Händel – Alcina, Belshazzar, Jephtha
Händel – Rinaldo
Hartmann – Simplicius Simplicissimus
Henze – We come to the River
Hindemith – Cardillac, Trilogie* (Mord, Hoffnung der Frauen, Sancta Susanna,Das Nusch-Nuschi)
Humperdinck – Hänsel und Gretel
J. Strauss – Die Fledermaus
Janacek – Katja Kabanová
Kagel – Der Mündliche Verrat
Lortzing – Der Wildschütz
Massenet – Thaiis
Milhaud – À propos de bottes, Un peu d’exercice
Mozart – Cosí fan tutte, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Don Giovanni, Idomeneo
La Finta Giardiniera, Le Nozze di Figaro, Die Zauberflöte
Poulenc – Dialogues des Carmelites
Prokofiev – Die Liebe zu den Drei Orangen
Puccini – La Bohème, Madame Butterfly, Tosca
Puccini – Manon Lescaut, Turandot
Rossini – Il Barbiere di Seviglia*, L´Italiana in Algeri
R. Strauss – Elektra, Der Rosenkavalier, Salome
Schleiermacher – Kokain
Schreker – Der Ferne Klang
Strawinsky – The Rake´s Progress
Tschaikowsky – Evgeny Onegin, Pique Dame
Verdi – Giovanna d´Arco
Verdi- Un Ballo in Maschera, Don Carlo, La Forza del
Destino, Otello, La Traviata, Rigoletto, Jerusalem
Vivaldi: Orlando
Wagner – Lohengrin, Parsifal,Tannhäuser
Wagner – Tristan und Isolde
Weber – Der Freischütz
Weill – Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny
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