Today we’d like to introduce you to Thomas Kresge.
Thomas, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Aside from a short stint with piano lessons as a kid, I basically started music in middle school. I wasn’t interested in any extracurriculars, but my parents gave me an ultimatum: I can play sports, or I can join band. Sports was never going to happen, so I reluctantly joined the band on saxophone.
My only other real hobby growing up was video games, and I was familiar with a lot of game music as a result. When I was 12 or 13 I downloaded some software that let me read video game sheet music and began arranging game music based on orchestral renditions I’d been hearing online. This eventually grew into me composing my own music and beginning to learn piano again.
I attended George Mason University and got a degree in music composition, though I attribute most of what I know today to my time in graduate school at the Seattle Film Institute, where I studied film scoring with Hummie Mann. I always saw myself pursuing a career in commercial music, and this ultimately led me to Los Angeles.
At this point, I largely work as an arranger, orchestrator (the person who takes the composer’s music and figures out which musicians play what), and copyist (the person who prepares the actual sheet music for the conductor and musicians). My first major job was as the orchestrator on a musical called “Way Back When.” Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to work as an orchestrator or copyist on major advertisements (Kohl’s), film trailers (The Incredibles 2), concerts (Diana Ross at the Hollywood Bowl), and feature films (Waiting for the Barbarians).
Of course, I continue to compose and have scored a couple of films and games. I am currently providing music and sound effects for the upcoming indie game, “Scrollwarden,” and working as the arranger and orchestrator on a new musical called “Esther.” Always wanting to return to what got me interested in music in the first place, I frequently arrange game music for live ensembles, and recently released an album of video game arrangements, “Brasslevania,” with the Game Brass, a brass quintet cover band. I also keep busy as a music instructor for piano, woodwind, trumpet, and compositions students, currently teaching about 25 students throughout the week.
Has it been a smooth road?
Whether it was actual ambition or just naivety, I always had a pretty clear idea of what to do next in life: after high school, I’d go to college, then to graduate school, and then to… LA? At that point, it became much less clear what to do with my life, and so the biggest challenge over the past few years has been figuring out what my bigger musical goals are. I’ve worked in almost every capacity a musician could, from composing to sound effects to mixing to recording, and I’ve just recently begun carving out a specific path in orchestrating, arranging, and music preparation, with future goals in conducting.
Can you give our readers some background on your music?
I work as a music composer, arranger, orchestrator, copyist, and educator, having provided or worked with the music in a variety of films, video games, advertisements, musical theater, and live concerts. At this point most of my work is as an arranger, orchestrator, and copyist, essentially working for other composers to either realize their music for different ensembles than it was originally written for, or to translate their music from the computer to sheet music, and make sure it’s playable by real, live musicians. I also regularly release my own arrangements of game music and am currently working on building up a few other recording and performance ensembles.
These personal albums mean a lot to me since they’re largely done just out of a passion for the music. But other than that, likely my proudest accomplishment is getting to work on music prep for Diana Ross’s concert at the Hollywood Bowl in 2018, as well as her Christmastime performance at the Rockefeller Center that same year.
As an educator, I teach students on piano, saxophone, flute, clarinet, trumpet, and composition. Passing on what I know to others is fulfilling in and of itself, and I hope to never lose the opportunity to help others.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
There is no shortage of things to see or people to meet in LA. It’s super convenient to always be near other professionals and industry events, and there’s no other city where it’s so easy to find such a high level of talent. Of course, the city’s physically quite big, and there are times I wish I could live somewhere a little more secluded, or at least where things aren’t so far apart from each other! But even if you’re outside of LA proper, the abundance of opportunities and professionals is hard to beat.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.KresgeMusic.com
- Phone: 2088701667
- Email: thomas@kresgemusic.com
- Twitter: @KresgeMusic
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