THOMAS PRIEST

Principal

Thomas Priest serves as Director of Music Education and Professor of Bassoon at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah. Besides teaching Bassoon, Dr. Priest offers coursework at WSU on Elementary and Secondary Music Methods as well as Rock History. His research has been focused on developing frameworks for improvisation and composition in music classes and this has led to publications in the Journal of Research in Music Education, Psychology of Music, The Music Educators Journal, and the Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education. 

As a Bassoonist, he has performed on four continents, and he regularly performs at the International Double Reed Society’s (IDRS) Annual Conference with the RK Bassoon Ensemble as well as a soloist. He performed with the RK Bassoon Quartet at IDRS 2017 at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. In 2016 he offered the Spanish premiere of his composition Running the Green for Bassoon and Piano in Malaga, Spain, and he premiered this same work at IDRS 2015 in Tokyo. His compositions are published by Trevco Music. He previously served as Principal Bassoonist with the Jerusalem Symphony and Co-Principal Bassoonist with the Santiago Philharmonic. He is an avid hiker and geocacher and enjoys camping with his two sons.