two reviews from a Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble concert, 7/17/04:

The music began with “Warm it up!” for solo percussionist by Thomas Osborne, a wonderful 26-year-old American composer being performed here for the first time, and with two compositions on the first half. “Warm it up!” is a series of intensifications, with the spacious opening acquiring almost conversational allusions. Faster passages build to controlled power that recalled the Koto Drummers in Ross B. Williams’ inspired performance that included bursts of light coordinated with the music.

-Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 7/19/04

After other music, pianist Jason Hardink presented Osborne’s “And the Waves Sing Because They Are Moving” — inspired by the poetry of Philip Larkin — with comparable insight. The piano solo piece also showed strong compositional drive to build a compelling experience out of his materials.

-Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 7/20/04

from a New York Youth Symphony performance, 3/6/05:

But before the Russian fireworks began, the orchestra, made up of 108 musicians from the metropolitan New York area, performed something fairly common for this ensemble but very rare for most youth symphonies: a world premiere. Through its essential First Music series, the orchestra has commissioned works from 62 young composers. It’s hard to imagine a better way to support new voices while at the same time building contemporary music into the regular diet of emerging musicians. In this case, the composer was Thomas Osborne, whose ”Nostalgia of the Infinite,” after the painting by Giorgio de Chirico, was a handsome study in musical contrasts, an evolving orchestral dialogue between steely, brass-heavy gestures and a more lush and pliable response from the strings.

-New York Times, 3/8/05

from the Pacific Symphony’s American Composers Compeition concert, 5/25/05:

Osborne’s “The Burning Music: prelude for orchestra,” inspired by its title and Carl Sandburg’s poem “Fire Pages,” flickered convincingly, its rattling repeated notes taking syncopated turns and chasing courses (as if following a fuse) through the orchestra. The drums kicked aggressively; bells tolled ritually: an athletic seven minutes.

-Orange County Register, 5/27/05

from Jason Hardink’s performance of “And the Waves Sing Because They are Moving” as part of his recital at the Gina Bachauer International Young Artists Piano Competition, 6/14/05:

Osborne’s “Waves” is a motoric piece, restless in its barely contained energy, with music waiting to fly forth from the instrument. It’s written for a partly prepared piano (a towel is laid across part of the strings), thereby creating an imaginative tonal landscape that oscillates between prepared and normal piano sounds. Hardink exploited this wonderfully with his lively interpretation. His reading dynamically captured the work’s exuberant flight of fancy.

-Deseret Morning News, 6/16/05