Tracy Thomas joins WHWC as Music Director for the 2009-2010 season, having returned from Las Vegas where she was conductor and accompanist for several community choruses. She most recently performed as the Mother Abbess/Elsa understudy in The Sound of Music (International Tour, 2008), worked as an opera singer and pianist at The Venetian in Las Vegas, and served as Assoc. Music Dir. for Fiddler on the Roof (National Tour, 2004-2005).

Ms. Thomas sings a wide variety of styles from musical theatre to jazz to opera. Regional credits have included leading roles in West Side Story, Grease, Guys and Dolls, Joseph . . . Dreamcoat, Company, and Fiddler on the Roof; favorite leading opera/oratorio roles have been in Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, Brahms’ Requiem, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Rossini’s Stabat Mater, and Mozart’s Mass in C (Lincoln Center debut).

In addition to many cabaret and recital appearances, including the Millennium Artists Series at the Kennedy Center, she has been a soloist with the Hartford Symphony On Ice, Eastern Connecticut Symphony, the Bloomington (IN) Pops, and the Santa Barbara (CA) Symphony. She was also a Fellow at the Eugene O'Neill Cabaret Symposium, and twice won finalist prizes at the prestigious American Traditions Competition in Savannah, GA.

Ms. Thomas has made numerous solo appearances for live television and National Public Radio broadcasts, was a soloist by invitation for Presidents William H. Clinton and George W. Bush, and a featured soloist for the 9/11/2001 Pentagon Memorial Service in Washington, DC. As the former vocal soloist for the U.S. Coast Guard Band, she was awarded the Coast Guard Commendation Medal (one of that service’s highest honors) for “outstanding achievement.” She is also the recipient of the Coast Guard Achievement Medal, and was named a Singing Hoosiers Distinguished Alumna of Indiana University in 2005.

Professional choral ensembles in which she has sung include Cornerstone Chorale, The Woodland Scholars, CONCORA, the Vocal Arts Ensemble of Cincinnati, and voxhumana. She is currently the soprano soloist and substitute organist at First Congregational Church of Old Lyme, and holds a B.M.E. from the Indiana University School of Music, and M.M., D.M.A. (ABD) in vocal performance from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.