"Thomas' direction seems just right, capturing the humanity of the music...there is no higher praise for Bach performance." —Fanfare Magazine
American Bach Soloists was founded in 1989 by tenor Jeffrey Thomas—now artistic and music director—and organist Jonathan Dimmock. ABS was recently hailed by the San Francisco Examiner as "period-style all-stars" who are "setting a new international standard" by presenting and recording historically informed, virtuosic performances of the cantatas, motets, and concertos of J.S. Bach. Bringing together the leading vocal and instrumental interpreters of baroque music in the United States, ABS members comprise a veritable who's who among early music specialists, most with significant recording careers already established in the US and Europe.
Jeffrey Thomas is Artistic and Music Director of American Bach Soloists, with whom he has directed recordings of more than 25 cantatas, the Mass in B Minor, the Musical Offering, motets, chamber music, and works by Schutz and Pergolesi. Mr. Thomas has appeared as a soloist with most major US symphonies and baroque orchestras.
Cited by the Wall Street Journal as "a superstar among oratorio tenors," he has worked with many noted conductors including Herbert Blomstedt, Edo de Waart, Christopher Hogwood, Ton Koopman, Gustave Leonhardt, Seiji Ozawa, Nicholas McGegan, Roger Norrington, Andrew Parrott, Robert Shaw, and David Zinman; with the Baltimore, Boston, Detroit, Houston, National, Rochester, and San Francisco symphony orchestras; with the Vienna Symphony and the New Japan Philharmonic; with virtually every American baroque orchestra; and in Austria, England, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Mexico.
He has recently performed at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Ravinia Festival, Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Berkeley Festival and Exhibition, Boston Early Music Festival, Bethlehem Bach Festival, Gottingen Festival, Tage Alte Musik Festival in Regensburg, E. Nakamichi Baroque Festival in Los Angeles, and at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival. Mr. Thomas' extensive discography of vocal music includes dozens of recordings of major works.