Tom Helm (conductor)

Thomas Lynn Helm, better known as Tom Helm, (June 16, 1952 – August 11, 2023) was an American conductor and orchestrator who primarily worked as a director of musical theatre and light opera. A native of Smithville, Missouri, he trained as a pianist at the University of Missouri–Kansas City. He began his career as a musical director with the Kansas City Repertory Theatre in 1974–1975. After this he moved to New York City where he first worked on the music staff of the Equity Library Theater. On Broadway he conducted several musicals during 1980s and 1990s; including Brigadoon, Cats, Me and My Girl, and Les Misérables.

Helm worked for more than twenty years as a conductor for the Paper Mill Playhouse where he was musical director for more than forty productions. One of these included a landmark 1998 production of Stephen Sondheim's Follies which the composer described as the first staging of the musical to present the work's complete score. He also led a 1999 Paper Mill production of Crazy for You which was filmed for national broadcast on PBS's Great Performances. His orchestrations for Paper Mill's 2005 production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella were later published by the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization in 2008.

Helm was music director of the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera (PCLO) from 1981 to 1982 and again from 1997 to 2016. The PCLO's 2004 production of The Music Man starring Jeff Goldblum as Harold Hill was the backdrop for the 2006 mockumentary film Pittsburgh. Helm was one of several PCLO artists featured in this movie.