✺Hi, I'm Hollie✺
I'm a composer, pianist, teacher, daydreamer, night thinker, musical tinkerer, white rabbit adherent, coffee addict, star wars fanatic, Satie scholar , and sporadic Swiftie currently based in Austin, Texas, (well, sort of), where I live with my 15-year-old son, London, and our cat, Igor Stravinsky The Cat.
To clarify, yes, I can understand that this may seem like a random list, but in the end, I am mostly a lover, and forever student, of harmony, and this fascination has guided my life and heart, and brought a miscellany of creative adventures, curious people, & black cats my way.
Please find below a "BIO" bio, and in the 3rd person which becomes increasingly uncomfortable to write in, does it not?
ABOUT HOLLIE
BIO
Hollie Thomas is an award-winning composer, pianist and language turned music educator dedicated to helping musicians deepen their musical understanding and chord prowess through creative play on the piano. Her years as an intensive English language instructor at the University of Texas well as her experience composing and performing modern classical and rock music have greatly affected her evolution as a music educator over the past 20 years in her independent Austin, Texas studio, and in her immersive online courses and workshops. Hollie holds a BA in Music Composition and a Masters of Education in Linguistic Acquisition. Her principal teachers in classical piano performance are the Hugh E. Thompson, Dr. Edward West, and Dr. Timothy Woolsey, and in composition, Dr. Jerry Hatley and Dr. Michael Woods.
MORE SPECIFIC
COMPOSER Hollie’s early compositions, often sparked by dark poetry, lost rivers, the City of Light, and whimsical childrens’ literature, received several awards, most notably the International League of Women Composers Ellen Taafe Zwilich* Award for her setting of Robert Frost’s Fire and Ice. After many years of stealth musical creativity (and being VERY busy, teaching English, teaching music, traveling around with a Korg and a Nord, and being a mom!), she is currently sorting through multitudes of moleskin notebooks of musical sketches and poetry, 7,000 logic files, and hundreds of Sibelius drafts, preparing for a collection for piano works in Fall of 2024, a chamber operetta exploring Erik Satie's lifelong obsession of Suzanne Valadon, and a ballet expanding her 2022 commissioned work for string quartet and piano, Suite for Lily, in Spring 2025.
PIANIST Professionally, Hollie has equal experience performing in classical & modern chamber groups, for cabaret, theater and dance, and in eclectic pop/rock bands such as guitarist/composer Kevin McCormick, David Garza, Mistress Stephanie & Her Melodic Cat, Deep Edward, The Jellydots, Cotton Mather, at many prominent music venues and festivals including The Cactus Cafe, Austin City Limits, SXSW, NXNW (did you know they have that in Toronto?), and ACL Festival in Austin. From 2006-2011, she performed, recorded & toured exclusively with Future Clouds & Radar, masterminded by Robert Harrison and described by The New Yorker as “Sprawling kaleidoscopic Art-Pop”, which is kind of putting it mildly.
EDUCATOR...This is a longer story, and never ending! I'm pretty busy teaching at this particular moment (and am breaking character by switching back to the first person now),but if you want to read a LONG BLOG STYLE recounting a part of my CURIOUS PATH that lead me to what I am building now, here you go...
*Sidenote, but—Did you know that Ellen Taafe Zwilich was the FIRST WOMAN to win a Pulitzer Prize in Music? Can you imagine that?
TINY VIDEO GALLERY
from bands
