Darian Donovan Thomas

“Bright, fresh and, in the best sense, innocent.” - Steve Reich

“… from a taut murmur to a roaring shout, a raw, passionately vulnerable experience.” - Jeremy Reynolds, New Sounds

“Exuberant violin playing… a loud, sometimes overwhelming, yet always vivid, wash of harmony.” - Vanessa Ague, The Road to Sound

Composer, multi-instrumentalist, and interdisciplinary artist Darian Donovan Thomas was born in San Antonio, Texas, and is currently based in Brooklyn, New York. He is interested in combining genres and mediums into a singular vocabulary that can express ideas about intersectionality (of medium and identity). Necessarily, he is interested in redacting all barriers to entry that have existed at the gates of any genre - this vocabulary of multiplicity will be intersectional, and therefore all-inclusive.

Darian has been commissioned and premiered by Jennifer Koh, Ensemble Signal, Adam Tender, So Percussion, ~Nois Quartet, YOSA (the Youth Orchestras of San Antonio), among others around the world.

On any given night you can find Darian performing anywhere from a salon house show to grungy basements to a bar/venue to formal concert halls. He has toured with Moses Sumney, appearing on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert and ColorsxStudios, performed in three Tiny Desk concerts with critically acclaimed artists Arooj Aftab, Balun, and Wild Up, and has toured internationally from Iceland with Apartment Sessions to Saudi Arabia with Arooj - performing at Coachella and Glastonbury festival along the way. In NYC alone he has performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Appolo Theater, The Guggenheim, The Whitney, The Met Museum, and The Noguchi Museum.

He presently performs with Arooj Aftab, Balun, Wild Up, MEDIAQUEER, String Orchestra of Brooklyn, and occasionally with Ensemble Signal and Bang On A Can. You can also find him performing his “Safe Space” solo set at different performance spaces around the country.

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