Thomas was born in
Brisbane, and attended Eagle Junction State School in
Clayfield. In August 1944, at age 12, he attended his first major evening orchestral concert, when
Eugene Ormandy conducted at
Brisbane City Hall in four concerts designed to boost the war effort. Thomas requested, and a few days later received, Ormandy's autograph, and from then on set his sights on becoming a conductor. Already recognised as a young flautist of exceptional ability, Patrick Thomas enrolled as Sub-Junior student at
Brisbane State High School, located in
South Brisbane, Queensland, in 1947. Later that year, as a 14-year-old, he played third
flute at the first
Queensland Symphony Orchestra (QSO) performance, on 26 March 1947, when the new 45-member ensemble under guest conductor
Percy Code introduced Queenslanders to their own professional symphony orchestra. In 1963, the ABC's acting federal director of music,
Joseph Post, gave him a conducting audition and less than two years later Thomas became director of the ABC's
Adelaide Singers. From there he had a year's stint during 1968, as Conductor of the
Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra before choosing to return to Adelaide. In 1973 he became the QSO's first – and, to date, only – homegrown chief conductor. He stayed in that post until 1977. He decided to increasingly offer 20th-century composers as a way of developing a broadened approach on the part of the audiences to diverse modern repertoire, plus a more responsive and capable facility from the orchestra. Patrick Thomas co-established a successful Modern Music Forum in Brisbane. Regularly conducting the
Sydney Symphony Orchestra including on its international tours, and
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Thomas's glamorous concert engagements outside Queensland were in stark contrast to the harsh performance conditions which he and his 65-piece orchestra endured at home. Able to fill in at short notice when a scheduled conductor cancelled, Thomas became the ABC's Sydney-based conductor-in-residence. Thomas established an international reputation, especially in Europe where he was offered coveted return engagements by several leading ensembles. But his dedication to family and his home country meant that his career remained based in Australia. As the final director of the
ABC Sinfonia, he became a casualty of the structural reforms of the mid-1980s that led eventually to the complete divestment of the orchestras from the ABC. As a writer, his later work included an autobiography (''Upbeats and Downbeats: A Conductor's Life
), several hundred poems, a booklet of career anecdotes, a published reference text (Overture to Conducting''), as well as articles and scripts for radio stations
2MBS FM and
ABC Classic FM. He died in August 2017 at the age of 85. ==Honours and awards==