Tom is known as the “one-man army” behind the Starkland record label, which he founded in 1991.

 

His award-winning recordings have been praised in The New York Times, Gramophone Magazine, The New Yorker, Stereophile, Los Angeles Times, Billboard, Washington Post, and Boston Globe, and have been featured on NPR’s "All Things Considered" and "Weekend Edition". Tom has been called “a new music force for 40 years” (Sequenza21).

 

Starkland’s composers include Charles Amirkhanian, Phillip Bimstein, Martin Bresnick, Tim Brady, Mary Ellen Childs, Tod Dockstader, Paul Dolden, Paul Dresher, William Duckworth, Fred Frith, Aaron Jay Kernis, Phil Kline, Guy Klucevsek, Lukas Ligeti, Keeril Makan, Ingram Marshall, Merzbow, Meredith Monk, Pauline Oliveros, Vincent Persichetti, Carl Stone, Lois V Vierk, Pamela Z, and John Zorn.

 

Musicians heard on Starkland’s releases include Kronos Quartet, The International Contemporary Ensemble, JACK Quartet, Todd Reynolds, Either/Or, Lisa Moore, Ashley Bathgate, Jenny Lin, and the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra.

 

Tom’s two most ambitious Starkland projects have focused on surround sound. For the first of these, he commissioned 13 leading-edge composers to create pieces for surround sound that premiered on his “Immersion” DVD-Audio. Publications such as Pro Sound News and Billboard recognized “Immersion” as the first such recording in history, and upon release, “Immersion” was often the #1 bestselling DVD-A at Amazon.

 

For his second DVD-A project, Tom commissioned Phil Kline’s hour-long Around the World in a Daze, called “an audio-visual feast that balances hipster zen with the seriousness of Bach and Wagner” by The New Yorker, “a set of sensational études” by New York Magazine, and “an electro-acoustic DVD extravaganza“ by The Washington Post.

 

For many of these releases, Tom did the mastering, design, and liner notes. His graphic design work has been nominated for Best Album Design and Best Concert Photo at the Independent Music Awards.

 

Pulitzer-winners have praised Tom’s work. John Luther Adams commented, “For anyone with open ears, Starkland is essential listening.” David Lang adds, “Starkland has been putting out cds and dvds of challenging and beautiful and provocative and powerful music.”

 

Prior to founding Starkland, Tom served as Executive Director of Owl Recording, where he released works by Samuel Barber, William Thomas McKinley, Vincent Persichetti, George Rochberg, Morton Subotnick, Elizabeth Vercoe, Iannis Xenakis, and others, along with producing one of the first recordings of music by the Pulitzer-prize winning composer John Luther Adams.

 

To date, Tom has released 50 recordings featuring 109 composer and 93 performers, in media ranging from LPs and CDs to surround-sound DVDs and digital-only issues.

 

Tom studied physics at Johns Hopkins, music theory at Goucher College, composition at the Univ. of Colorado at Boulder, and recording engineering at the Univ. of Colorado at Denver. He lives in Boulder, CO.