Education
He holds a Bachelor of Music (Honours) from McGill University, a Graduate Diploma in Scoring for Motion Pictures and Television from the University of Southern California, and a Master"s Degree and a Doctor of Philosophy in musicology from the University of Toronto. He is also one of a very few Canadian academics who have studied with notable film composers Jerry Goldsmith, John Williams, Bruce Broughton, Henry Mancini and Buddy Baker at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music in composition for motion pictures and television He worked as an orchestrator for several American television programs including In the Heat of the Night, and worked as an orchestrator for several Hollywood films including Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.
Career
Thorburn was resident musical director of The Thousand Islands Playhouse since 1986, and has musically directed numerous musicals. He has also directed two highly regarded productions including Forever Plaid (2009) which was remounted at the Victoria Playhouse, Petrolia, and subsequently at the Mississauga Living Arts Centre near Toronto, Canada and Billy Bishop Goes to War (2011) by John Gray, which will be remounted at the Capitol Theatre in Portuguese Hope in 2012. He has taught music history, theory, ear training, performance and composition at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, as well as at the Faculty of Music, Scarborough College, and Knox College at the University of Toronto, the University of Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University, and Lakehead University in Orillia.
He has also taught musical theatre performance at Saint Lawrence College in Brockville.
He is a lecturer at Knox College, University of Toronto in Music in Christian Spirituality.
Membership
He is a regular lecturer and speaker on music, opera, theatre, and musical theatre, and has been a member of the Canadian Opera Company Speakers Bureau since 1999.
