Born 1947 as youngest son of the contralto Marga Höffgen and the conductor Theodor Egel, Thomas Goldschmidt began to play the violin at the age of four. He studied in Basel (S. Zöldy), Freiburg (W. Marschner) and on recommendation by Isaac Stern in Bloomington (J. Gingold and W. Wronski). In London he was a private student of Nathan Milstein. Thomas Goldschmidt was awarded the Mendelssohn-Award (Berlin) and the Paganini-Award (Genova).
He was long term concertmaster of the Freiburger Bachorchester. His international solo career began with the Bamberg Symphony and Eugen Jochum, the Concertgebouw Orkest Amsterdam and the London Philharmonic in the Royal Festival Hall and proceeded amongst others in Vienna, Zürich, Geneve, Palermo, Napoli, Milano and Berlin. In addition to this he had a vivid chamber music career playing with pianists like Wilhelm Kempff in Rome, Zürich, Vienna, Turino, Parma, Firenze, Trieste and at the Stresa-Festival.
From 1979 to 2012 he was Professor for Violin at the Academy of Music Würzburg. There he performed regularly as a conductor of his own orchestra, playing music by Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Bruckner, Tchaikovsky, Wagner and Richard Strauß.