Thomas Kahelin composer / arranger

Thomas Kahelin (b. Calif.) is an American composer and educator.

A native Southern Californian, Tom grew up in Manhattan Beach. Music has been a part of his life since the age of 10, when he began playing the trumpet. He continued at Mira Costa High School, with director William B. Power, culminating in his conducting debut with the concert band.

Mr. Kahelin graduated with honors from the University of Southern California, having studied with Morten Lauridsen, James Hopkins, Anthony Vazzana and Robert Linn. After winning the inaugural Hans J. Salter Composition Award, he was inducted into the national music honor society, Pi Kappa Lambda.

Tom Kahelin has enrolled in UC Irvine's Master of Arts in Teaching degree program, having just obtained his single subject credential in music. For him, becoming a music teacher was an inevitable process and a convergence of creativity.

Tom's compositional work encompasses a wide variety of ensembles, from brass quintet to choral to concert band to full symphonic orchestra. His concert band pieces are regularly performed in Southern California School Band & Orchestra Association festivals. Tom is very pleased that his piece On an American Hymn Tune has been added to SCSBOA's official festival music list. Outside the concert hall, Tom has an equally varied presence: among recent projects, he has arranged and produced music for Hal Leonard Publishing, produced two CDs for Intellivision Music Productions, composed and produced critically acclaimed music for the stage, contributed to a number of multimedia projects and even designed large scale "sonic atmospheres" for several galleries at the Oregon Coast Aquarium.

While at UC Irvine, Tom's concert band piece Western Horizons was commercially published worldwide by Alfred Publishing. From his work at UCI, Tom has become intrigued by the study of creativity itself and plans to continue conducting further research on the subject.