Dr. Thomas Kurtz (he/him) is a musician, educator, and arts leader whose work connects performance, community engagement, and the professional development of artists. Across academic, nonprofit, and civic settings, he builds programs and partnerships that create opportunities for musicians and the communities they serve.

Thomas serves as Assistant Professor of Music, Music Program Director, and Co-Chair of the Performing Arts Department at the University of San Francisco. He also teaches in the Professional Development Department at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where his courses include Professional Fundamentals and Financial Literacy. His teaching draws on years of work in public schools, universities, community music schools, and community settings. At USF, he has grown music enrollment, created the program's first internship and Community-Engaged Learning courses, and designed an Arts Leadership concentration in USF's Master in Management program. He also created the Music Career Roadmap, an open digital guide for artists building sustainable creative practices.

Community engagement runs through all of his work. Thomas has built long-term partnerships with organizations including Openhouse, National AIDS Memorial, Jiten Daiko, SF Gay Men’s Chorus, Ruth's Table, and the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, giving students regular chances to learn, create, and perform alongside community members and professional artists. One collaboration between USF and SFCM had students compose new works from oral history interviews with LGBTQ+ older adults, culminating in a public performance. He also developed a Leadership Award and Lecture Series with the National AIDS Memorial, funded by the Gilead Foundation, which has awarded more than $50,000 in student scholarships.

Thomas's arts leadership extends well beyond the classroom. He is Artistic Director of Light in the Grove, the National AIDS Memorial's signature benefit, and serves on the Memorial's board. He is also Board President of The Family Link, a San Francisco nonprofit. Earlier roles include managing marketing and communications for the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, co-curating Living Jazz's inaugural Professional Development Workshop, coordinating the Austin Chamber Music Center's nationwide Coltman Chamber Music Competition, and contributing to the City of Austin's 2021 World Cities Culture Report and Cultural Asset Mapping Project. Nationally, he serves as Editor for Performances, Lectures, Lecture-Recitals, and Training Videos for College Music Symposium.

His research examines how music and performance have served as a catalyst for social change, with a focus on the queer community in the San Francisco Bay Area during the AIDS crisis. Drawing on archival work at the GLBT Historical Society and on oral history interviews, he studies how music builds community response and collective action. He is co-editor of Viral Measures, forthcoming from the University of Michigan Press.

As a saxophonist, Thomas has won prizes in national and international competitions and recently appeared as a soloist at Carnegie Hall. His performing work centers on new music and collaboration with living composers. He has presented at conferences including the College Music Society, Music Teachers National Association, Association for Arts Administration Educators, Strategic National Arts Alumni Project, North American Saxophone Alliance, and the Sabre Festival in Zürich. He has given residencies and clinics at institutions including the University of Colorado Boulder, University of California, Los Angeles, Lewis University, University of Arkansas, and Brandeis University.

Thomas holds degrees from Montclair State University, the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and the University of Texas at Austin, respectively, where he earned his Doctor of Musical Arts with a cognate in Cultural Arts Management and Entrepreneurship.

Curriculum vitae available upon request.