His many awards include a grant from The National Endowment for the Arts and a Distinguished Teacher Citation from The White House Commission on Presidential Scholars.

In December 2001, Dr. Thomas went to Nanning, China to conduct his Three Scenes from the Summer Palace and other works, to perform as a pianist, and to teach master classes in composition.

He is currently composing a new evening length cross-cultural ballet, "Focus of the Heart" for the Chinese people with an original story written by his partner Howard Kessler.

After twelve years he stepped down from his administrative position in 2006 to concentrate on his composition works, to teach and to foster the musical talents of young international "Citizens of the World".

Dr. Thomas has also orchestrated his music for lyricist, Gene Scheer‘s Lean Away and ‘I Just Found Another New Voice Teacher‘ for a Metropolitan Opera performance of Die Fledermaus.

After Vladimir Ashkenazy conducted The Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin in Dr. Thomas's marimba concerto, Loving Mad Tom with Evelyn Glennie as the soloist, Jürgen Otten of Der Tagespiel wrote "... his arsenal of romantic ghost music from Weber to Berlioz to Liszt is recognized here, and sound-consciously conveyed into the modern idiom.