Jennifer Thomas
Jennifer Thomas is a pianist, violinist, performing artist, recording artist, and composer. She is a multi-award-winning Yamaha Artist.
She is known for writing and performing piano-centered orchestral music that includes classical, crossover, and cinematic orchestral epic music. She has composed film scores. She won the Gold Medal of Excellence in the 2011 Park City Film Music Festival for “Music in a Short Film” and a 2012 Hollywood Music in Media Award for “Best Film Score for Documentary/Short.”
She has released six albums: Key of Sea (2007), The Lullaby Album, volumes 1 & 2 (2009), Illumination (2012), Winter Symphony (2015), Key of Sea (10 Year Special Edition, 2017), and The Fire Within (2018). Illumination won “Album of the Year” and “Artist of the Year” at the 2013 IMC Awards. In 2015, the album also won the “Classical Song of the Year” International Music and Entertainment Association Award and the Enlightened Piano Radio Award for “Best piano album with instrumentation” at Carnegie Hall in New York City, where she performed live at the awards ceremony. Winter Symphony received many favorable reviews and during 2016 won several awards.
Her 2018 The Fire Within debuted at number 3 in the Billboard Classical music charts, number 2 in the Classical Crossover music charts and number 25 in the Top Heatseekers.
She has been nominated and has received numerous awards. She has also been featured on various albums.
Thomas was born on June 23, 1977, in Seattle, Washington. She began formal lessons at age 5 with her mother Carolyn Southworth. She was involved in many recitals and piano adjudications and played with youth orchestras and high school orchestras.
She studied piano under Professor Stephen Allen at [[BYU-Idaho|Brigham Young University-Idaho. She was a member of the university's Piano Ensemble group, accompanied the College choir and many vocal/instrumental students, as well as played violin in the university symphony. Thomas also competed in the University's Concerto Competition, where she took 2nd place performing the Piano Concerto No. 3 (Prokofiev).
After she graduated with a degree in performing arts/piano pedagogy, she moved to Salt Lake City, Utah and regularly performed with the Temple Square Concert Series. She also played violin in the Murray Symphony orchestra. She later moved to the Northwest and performed as a violinist with the Oregon Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra and worked for the Seattle Symphony in the Education Department.
During 2019, she performed in a summer concert tour of western United States. Performers in the world of figure skating have used her music in competitions. For instance, American Alysa Liu performed to Illumination to win the Junior Grand Prix in the United States. South Korean figure skater Cha Jun-hwan performed to The Fire Within.
Thomas is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She and her husband, Will, are the parents of three children.
