About Thomas Shoebotham

Music Director of the Palo Alto Philharmonic

Mr. Shoebotham has a highly varied musical career that includes opera and orchestral conducting, cello and piano performance, and public and private teaching.

He is presently Music Director of the Palo Alto Philharmonic, where performances included the orchestra’s first performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and a special concert commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian uprising of 1956 featuring internationally acclaimed piano soloist Jenö Jandó. He has conducted performances for many groups in the San Francisco Bay Area, including Opera San José (Les Pêcheurs de Perles), Peninsula Symphony, the San Francisco Concerto Orchestra, and Berkeley Opera (Otello, Béatrice et Bénédict, Le Nozze di Figaro, Carmen, Cosí fan Tutte, and L'italiana in Algeri). As a cellist, he has appeared as a soloist with the Oakland Civic Orchestra, Kensington Symphony, and Palo Alto Philharmonic, in recital in Palo Alto, and in chamber music performances with Trio Jubilee in Los Gatos, Burlingame, and Palo Alto. In previous years he has given solo performances on cello and on piano in Los Angeles, New Mexico, Illinois, and New York.