photo © Peter Schaaf

Born in 1949 in Springfield, Massachusetts, THOMAS F. PARKER is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. From 1972 to 1974, he was Special Producer and music director of WTIC-FM in Hartford, Connecticut, winning the prestigious Major Edwin H. Armstrong Award, administered by the Armstrong Memorial Research Foundation at Columbia University. In 1974, he moved to New York City to begin a career in artist management, and, during the following sixteen years, was associated with Colbert Artists Management, Sheldon Soffer Management, and Shaw Concerts, serving the last firm as Vice President. In the fall of 1990, he established his own firm, Parker Artists.

Thomas F. Parker has given workshops and seminars for The Juilliard School, Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, Aspen Music School, New England Conservatory, Concert Artists Guild, New England Foundation for the Arts and Connecticut Commission on the Arts, has been a panelist for Chamber Music America and the First American Classical Guitar Congress, and served on juries for Affiliate Artists, the Third Arturo Toscanini International Competition for conductors in Parma, Italy, New Choreographers On Point and the Sewanee Summer Music Festival. In recognition of his services to Israel’s Campus Orchestra, he was elected in 1994 a Charter Member of that ensemble’s International Honorary Committee. In 2016, he was elected to the Board of Directors of New York City’s Musicians Foundation (est. 1914), which he now serves as Vice President.

He has twice been honored by his alma mater: In 1987, he was named the first recipient of the "Distinguished Alumnus in the Arts" award, presented by the Department of Music and Dance; in 1988, in observance of the University of Massachusetts’ 125th Anniversary, he was selected as a winner of the "125 Alumni to Watch" award.