Thomas Dawkins, former Music Director and Organist

Education:

B.A., Brandeis University

Biography:

Thomas B. Dawkins was appointed Music Director and Organist in the Tufts University Chaplaincy from August 2018 to April 2022.

His main duties were to provide music for the Protestant Evening Worship that takes place weekly in Goddard Chapel, various university events including Matriculation, Baccalaureate, and Commencement, as well as performing and organizing concerts in the chapel such as the Halloween Midnight Organ Recital and Winter Holiday Concert. He also curated instruments and records the monthly tune played by the carillon in the bell tower. He was committed to making the chapel at Tufts a destination for those wishing to hear and to make great sacred music.

He graduated with a B.A. magna cum laude  from Brandeis University, with Highest Honors in Music, and was the first recipient of the Ira Gershwin Prize for excellence in music performance.

From 2007-2018,  he was been Music Director at the Congregational Church of Harvard, Massachusetts (United Church of Christ) where he also conducted major choral works like the Fauré Requiem, Handel’s Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day, the Vivaldi Gloria, and Stainer’s The Crucifixion. Before that, he worked as a substitute organist at St. Peter’s Church of Weston, the Follen Community Church of Lexington (Unitarian Universalist), as well as Temple B’nai Torah of Sudbury and Boston Jewish Spirit.

As a piano accompanist and vocal coach, he was on staff at the Longy School of Music for several years as well as working with several private teachers (including the late Robert Honeysucker), and has played for New England Light Opera, Opera Brittenica, Opera on Tap, and Greater Worcester Opera. As a solo keyboardist, he has performed with several local orchestras, in recital at the Newton Free Library, and his recording of Chopin’s “Raindrop” Prelude was selected for the Carnegie Hall education website in 2014. He also played for four episodes of the radio game show Says You! on NPR in 2016.

As a baritone chorister, he has lent his voice to ensembles from Boston Baroque and the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston (with whom he appears on five recordings) to Renaissance Men and the soundtrack to Final Fantasy XV and Hans Zimmer Live. As a solo singer, he has done opera and oratorio with a number of groups including Opera51, The Concord Orchestra, Paul Madore Chorale, and many others.