Jeff Thomas

Since the end of '04 I've been living in Frostburg, remote western Maryland as the university there offered my wife a job. After working on instruments for the past dozen or so years I decided it was time to seriously start on my own. And so Thomas Concertinas began. As I had become accustomed to playing high-end instruments and doing the precision work required at the Abell Flute Company, I knew I would have to make a top quality concertina. Now that most of the R&D is finished and the production is starting I hope to start playing more music and help foster a traditional Irish scene here in Mountain Maryland. I've been playing concertina since 1990 shortly after being introduced to Irish traditional music by a few friends and the lower part of the FM dial. Concertina quickly became an obsession even though, at the time, there were only a few recordings available and players were rare in the mountains of the south eastern U.S. Fiddles and pipes were my main early influences mostly from playing with Beanie Odell and Quinto Espina in Asheville, NC, my home for a dozen years. Eventually, I had the opportunity to attend one of Noel Hill's classes which was my first official instruction on the instrument. That was followed by a few lessons and various input from others in a variety of styles and approaches which have all, to some degree, led to the sound of my playing.