As a composer and curator, Clemens K. Thomas (*1991 in Karlsruhe) tells stories and deals with pressing issues of our time. Recurring motifs in his works are the processing of our everyday media life, the nostalgic transfiguration of the past and the physicality of a man-machine. Linked to this, the world of play, playfulness, toys and instrumental playing also run like a common thread through his work, for example in his preoccupation with dolls or music automatons. As a harpsichordist and opera fan, Clemens has an emotional relationship with the European musical tradition, which he clashes with pop culture and internet phenomena in a contemporary form.

Clemens’ portfolio includes vocal, instrumental and music-theatrical pieces as well as site-specific compositions and installations. His works have been performed by musicians such as Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Ensemble Recherche, Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart and Ensemble Proton Bern at the Philharmonie de Paris, Staatstheater Braunschweig, Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, ECLAT and Frau Musica Nova, among others. His music has been broadcast on ARTE Concert, Deutschlandfunk, Deutschlandfunk Kultur, SWR 2, SR 2 and RTS Espace 2 (Switzerland).

Clemens K. Thomas studied composition in Freiburg with Johannes Schöllhorn and Cornelius Schwehr. As a current scholarship holder of the Claussen Simon Foundation, he is writing an opera for the Hamburg State Opera, combined with an artistic-scientific dissertation on cuteness as an aesthetic category.

From 2019 to 2022 he was Artistic Manager of Ensemble Recherche Freiburg. As a freelance curator, Clemens K. Thomas works with Ensemble Resonanz and the Göttingen Symphony Orchestra, among others. Together with Friederike Scheunchen and Lucia Kilger, he directs Ensemble Scope.