Pianist Louise Thomas has concertized extensively throughout Europe, North America and Asia at such concert venues as the Tchaikovsky Conservatoire in Moscow, the Franz Liszt Academy Museum in Budapest, the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing, Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and Weill Hall in New York City. Louise Thomas was born in Ireland and completed undergraduate musicology studies at Trinity College, Dublin. She received a German Government scholarship to continue piano performance studies at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hannover, Germany where she received a Konzertdiplom in the solo piano class. Dr. Thomas won second prize at the Ibla-Ragusa competition in Sicily where she was awarded the Béla Bartók Prize. She also won the concerto competition at the University of Southern California and performed with Maestro Sergiu Comissiona. Dr. Thomas received her doctorate in piano performance in 1999 from USC where she studied with Prof. John Perry and Director of Keyboard Collaborative Arts, Dr. Alan Smith. Dr. Thomas joined Chapman University in 2001 as Director of Keyboard Collaborative Arts. In June 2014, she was named Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Performing Arts at Chapman and in 2015, was promoted to Full Professor.