Tom Clippinger

Award-winning classical and electric guitarist, Dr. Tom Clippinger has been described as “one of the finest young players I’ve heard,” and “someone to watch” (Oren Fader, guitarist and faculty at Manhattan School of Music and SUNY Purchase). As an advocate for new music, Tom frequently works with composers to expand the classical guitar repertoire, and in this process has been the dedicatee of several new works by composers such as Celil Refik Kaya, Jose Maria Sanchez-Verdu, and Federico Bonacossa. Tom has performed for concert series across the US including Compositum Musicae Novae, The International Saxophone Symposium, Music at Saint Mark’s (Columbia University), and the 2018 TEDXFSU conference.

Tom completed his undergraduate studies at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, his Masters degree at Florida State University, where he served as a teaching assistant to esteemed pedagogue, Bruce Holzman, and recently his Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Texas at Austin. He has also attended Le Domaine Forget International Music Festival, The Aspen Music Festival, Brevard Institute, and Mostly Modern Festival. 

Additionally, Tom is a former member of the Austin Guitar Quartet. While in the group, he performed and recorded Nico Muhly’s “How Little You Are” with the Texas Guitar Quartet, and the GRAMMY Award Winning groups, Los Angeles Guitar Quartet and Conspirare. The recording of this work was released in 2020 by Delos Productions, and reached #15 on the Billboard traditional classical charts in its first week, reviewed favorably by BBC 3 Radio, featured in the January 2021 issue of Gramophone Magazine, named a top album of 2020 by Philadelphia’s WRTI, and named a top 10 album of 2020 by The Chicago Tribune. 

More recently, Tom is a founding member of the New York City Guitar Quartet with guitarists Jordan Dodson, Phil Goldenberg, and John Marcel Williams.

Tom plays on a Glenn Canin guitar, is an Ex-Aequo Artist and Augustine Strings Artist.