Thomas Hyde was born in London in 1978 and educated there and at Oxford where he read music. Following private lessons with David Matthews while still at school he undertook postgraduate composition studies at the Royal Academy of Music with Simon Bainbridge where he gained the M.Mus degree with distinction in 2001 and was appointed the Academy's Manson Junior Fellow in Composition for the subsequent academic year. In 2003 he returned to Oxford to pursue doctoral studies at Christ Church College where his tutor is Robert Saxton.
Thomas Hyde has won several prizes for his work. In 1992 he was the youngest finalist in the Baylis Programme / English National Opera young composers' competition 'New Visions, New Voices' and the following year was awarded the under-19 National School Band Association Prize. In 1996 he attended the Scottish Chamber Orchestra's Hoy Summer School to study with Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and in 2000 received a scholarship to work with Sir Harrison Birtwistle at the Dartington International Summer School.
Hyde's works have been heard at the Spitalfields, City of London, Presteigne, Deal and Little Missenden festivals in Britain and also throughout North America. He is also active as a writer, most recently contributing to The Musical Times.
'Hyde's sensuous, lyrical writing was given full rein in Vanderspar's gripping performance, buoyed up by the rich, luminous textures from the other instrumentalists, which would as suddenly lighten into beautiful soloistic moments…'
The Strad (February 2004)
'Colourfully dissonant writing shows a true ear for composition…'
The Organ (February 2001)
