Music Professor Stephen Thomas plays Denmark, Romania tour Stephen Thomas, Professor of Music and former Acting Dean of the College of the Arts, has just returned from performing Edvard Grieg's Piano Concerto in A Minor with the Nordsjaelland Symfoni Orkester in the Copenhagen, Denmark area, and on tour with the orchestra in Romania. The concerts were very well received, particularly in Targu Mures, Romania, where the sustained and enthusiastic audience response demanded an encore from Dr. Thomas. In addition, Thomas is set to release a solo piano compact disc recording titled "Music of Two Worlds" featuring works by Haydn, Brahms, and South American composers Esther Scliar (Brazil), and Alberto Ginastera (Argentina). The CD should be available in the University Bookstore later this fall. Thomas, a faculty member of the Department of Music since 1996, studied piano performance at Brigham Young University, Yale University, and the University of Michigan where he worked with such notable artists as Claude Frank, Peter Frankl and Arthur Greene.  In addition to serving six years as Department Chair (2000-2006), he also founded the Sylvia Ghiglieri Piano Competition and the Piano Sessions of Summer Music at Stanislaus, a music camp for young musicians. Thomas also performed two chamber music concerts this summer in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, with principal players from the Fresno Philharmonic. The performances were part of the Pro Musica San Miguel El Grande chamber music series and featured two different programs, one consisting of pieces by the Mozart family, and the other consisting of works by Brahms and Shostakovich.