Thomas Bloch is renowned as one of the leading performers of rare instruments (the ondes Martenot, the glass harmonica, the cristal Baschet, the waterphone, etc.), both in the field of classical music and in contemporary and experimental music, including opera, improvisation, chanson, rock, theatre, film music, dance, world music and more. He is also a composer and producer.
Thomas Bloch won first prize for the ondes Martenot at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris and holds a master’s degree in musicology from the University of Strasbourg. He has performed in more than 3,000 concerts in 40 countries and has appeared on 150 recordings, both his own and as a guest artist.
His numerous collaborations include works with Radiohead, John Cage, Gorillaz and Damon Albarn, Tom Waits, Marianne Faithfull, Bob Wilson, Milos Forman (Amadeus), Valery Gergiev, Pierre Boulez, Charles Berling, -M-, Yvan Cassar, Manu Dibango, Lara Fabian, Vanessa Paradis, Jane Birkin, Arthur H, Zazie, Sanseverino, Thomas Fersen, Marie Laforêt, Charlélie Couture and many more.
At La Scala in Milan, Thomas Bloch performed a world première of the original glass harmonica version of the mad scene from Donizetti’s opera Lucia di Lammermoor, and he was invited to play the ondes Martenot as a soloist at the centenary of the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Antoni Wit). He frequently performs in all the concert halls of Paris, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Tonhalle in Zurich, the Mariinsky in St Petersburg, Tokyo, New York, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Sydney, San Francisco, Budapest, Bogotá, Stockholm, Helsinki, Oslo, Tel Aviv, Seattle, Reykjavik, Berlin, London, Lisbon and Riga.
Thomas Bloch has recorded for most of the major labels (Columbia, EMI, Erato, Deutsche Grammophon, Harmonia Mundi, Philips, RCA, Sony Classical, Toshiba, Naïve, D&G, K.617 and more). In recent years, he has recorded around ten personal albums on the Naxos label.
He teaches the ondes Martenot at the Strasbourg Conservatoire, is an Evian Festival artistic director and also presents his instruments at the Musée de la Musique in Paris.
