About
Thomas Ciszak is a composer, music theorist, and keyboardist. Originally from Vancouver, British Columbia, he has made Berlin his home since 2018. In both his compositions and research, he explores new avenues of musical invention, while maintaining a close connection to past traditions. Adapting ancient principles to modern practice, Thomas is particularly focused on the expressive potential of enharmonicism, as it manifests in different tuning systems and temperaments.
A recent recipient of the Elsa-Neumann Stipendium, Thomas has garnered numerous honours and scholarships for his projects. His writing on music has been published by Bärenreiter Verlag and TEMPO (Cambridge University Press). Thomas has held artistic residencies at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and the Stichting Huygens-Fokker, and has presented his scholarly work at symposiums in Basel (FHNW) and Berlin (Akademie der Künste). Before leaving Canada, he was awarded 1st prize from the SOCAN Foundation for his setting of the E. E. Cummings poem l(a, and was a featured composer in FAWN's Synesthesia IV (Toronto).
Thomas holds a double Bachelor's in Composition and Theory from McGill University, and a Master's in Composition from the Universität der Künste Berlin, where he studied with Marc Sabat. While at McGill, his mentors included William Caplin, Peter Schubert, Christoph Neidhöfer, and Philippe Leroux. A committed teacher himself, Thomas co-led the Universität der Künste's Intonation seminar from 2020–23. Before pursuing his degrees in music, he graduated from the University of Victoria with a Bachelor's in Psychology.