DR. RICHARD THOMAS is Assistant Professor of Music and Coordinator for String Studies at Presbyterian College.  During the summers he is String Department Head and Chamber Music Coordinator at Camp Encore-Coda in Sweden, Maine.  Thomas studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music, De Pauw University, the University of North Texas, and received a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of South Carolina.  He is a former member of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Colombia (Bogotá), Orquesta Sinfónica del Valle (Cali, Colombia), the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional (Sto. Domingo, Dominican Republic) and most recently served as principal cellist of the Wilmington Symphony in North Carolina.  In addition, he is a former faculty member of the University of North Carolina Wilmington, the South Carolina Governor‘s School for the Arts and Humanities, the Universidad del Cauca and Universidad del Valle in Colombia, and the Conservatorio Nacional in the Dominican Republic.  Thomas plays a 2004 Grubaugh and Seifert cello.