Enthusiastic reviews applaud the "virtuoso performance by organist J. Thomas Mitts" – a "sensitive soloist who precisely spelled out the virtuoso passages" in his “spell-binding” appearances in festivals and concert series in the United States, Europe, and Russia. He is known for his insightful approach to early music as well as his interpretive skills and declamatory deliverance of the major Romantic repertoire.

Dr. Mitts is Associate Professor of Organ and Director of Church Music at Shenandoah Conservatory. In addition to teaching organ performance and related keyboard skills, he oversees the undergraduate and graduate degree and certificate programs in Church Music. Each summer he plans and leads the Church Music Institute, a two-week intensive study of the skills and knowledge required of a musician working in the church.

As the Artistic Director of Shenandoah’s Bach-Handel Festival of Baroque Music, Dr. Mitts works with students from across the Conservatory in the preparation and performance of early music. He also serves as organist for the annual Service of Lessons & Carols, a highly anticipated event that he designs and coordinates. Dr. Mitts also leads graduate seminars in Music History and Music Theory, and oversees document preparation for doctoral Lecture Recitals.

Since 1993 Dr. Mitts has also served as Organist and Choirmaster at Augustana Lutheran Church in Washington, DC, a church whose worship life is propelled by dynamic music and liturgy. In this capacity he has composed Mass settings, graduals, psalms and other liturgical elements as well as anthems and festival settings for voices and instrumental ensembles. He has also prepared scholarly performing editions of early music for use in liturgical celebrations and concerts.

Prior to joining the faculty at Shenandoah, Dr. Mitts was associated with Adas Israel Congregation, also in DC, as organist, pianist, and choral conductor. There he created arrangements of music from the Holocaust and a performing edition of music for the Sabbath by Salamone Rossi, which he later conducted for the Jewish Service of the national convention of the American Guild of Organists in 2010. He has held academic appointments at Cornell College in Mt. Vernon, Iowa, the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, the University of New Orleans, and Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.