Dr. Thomas Foster is a long time student of world-renowned guitar pedagogue Aaron Shearer. He holds a Bachelor of Music from the North Carolina School of the Arts and Master of Music from Appalachian University. He received his Suzuki certification under the tutelage of William Kossler and has developed a special guitar curriculum for children that is aligned with California State Educational Standards.

Thomas has performed in master classes throughout the U.S. with Pepe Romero, David Russell, Assad Brothers, Ricardo Cobo, John Holmquist, Steve Arron, David Leisner, and Dusan Bogdanovic just to name a few. He has studied world music and jazz with Miroslav Tadic, David Oaks, Richard Smith, and Adam Del Monte. Recently he was one of four players selected to perform for John Williams at the Merida, Mexico Guitar Festival in 2004.

Currently, he is completing his doctorate as a student of Prof. James Smith at the University of Southern California, Thornton School of Music. He has pursued doctoral minors in the areas of theory and ethnomusicology and has studied performance with the Pepe Romero, Scott Tennant and Bill Kannengiser.