Thomas "Tommy" Trotter (1954-2017) was born in Atlanta, Georgia. He graduated from Avondale High School in 1982 and the University of Georgia in 1986. After school, he became a professional operatic tenor, specializing in both classical music and cabaret. Over his twenty-five year career, he performed in more than fifty roles including Peter Quint in The Turn of the Screw, Vanderdendur in Candide, Tobias Ragg in Sweeney Todd, and Li'l Bat in Susannah in theaters such as the Garth Newel Music Center, L'Orchestre de Beaux Arts, and Notre Dame Cathedral. He sang with many companies including the Shreveport Opera, the New York Opera Project, the Youngstown Symphony, the Anchorage Symphony, Albany Georgia Symphony, the New York Choral Symphony Society, and the Eastern Connecticut Symphony. Trotter won numerous awards including the Richard Gold Career Grant from the New York City Opera. Trotter and his partner, Holten Mastin (1926-2012), moved from New York to Atlanta in 2007 because of Mastin's ill health. Trotter continued to perform, opened a vocal studio in Atlanta, and later married Cecil Benoit. The couple moved to Hawaii to study in the Department of Music at the University of Hawaii at Mamoa.