Quin (formerly Helen) Thomson (they / them) is a composer, classically trained vocalist, musical director, multi-instrumentalist, improviser, live sound designer, and creative-advocate. Their compositions have featured in the Festival of Voices, Qtas Choir’s Queer Narratives: Story to Song, and Sequenza Ensemble’s Birdsong cycle; also in performances by Van Diemen’s Band, the Tasmanian Youth Orchestra constellation of ensembles including its flagship orchestra, and as part of the Text/ure project; their concert-length oratorio A Tasmanian Requiem premiered in 2018 to extraordinary critical acclaim. Experimental work includes site-responsive endurance improvisations, particularly Bowerbird (September 2021), development of immersive meditative work incorporating Cymatics (as part of the HyPe project at Salamanca Arts Centre in 2019), and the development of the Electrogurdy, a novel controller/instrument to facilitate real-time digital signal processing of found sound (2023).
Their international performing career encompasses appearances with Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir, the Netherlands Bach Society, the Egidius College, the Song Company, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Van Diemen’s Band and Ludovico’s Band, among many others.
They are Van Diemen’s Band’s 2025 composer in residence; other forthcoming premieres include Through the Air, part of the Respect series for performance in February 2025 by the Homophonic! ensemble.