Gordon Thornett
Gordon Thornett was born in 1942. He read music at the University of Manchester, and went on to teach at a number of secondary schools in London, and also became a member of the LSO Chorus.
Following a teaching exchange year California, he undertook training as a music therapist at the Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Centre in London. Soon after that, he moved with his family to Birmingham, where he worked in special schools. Since 2000 he has been a freelance music therapist, composer and arranger.
As a longstanding member of the CBSO Chorus, Gordon Thornett has written a number of pieces for chorus and orchestra, which have featured in Christmas concerts in the UK and elsewhere. He conducts the Sutton Coldfield Chamber Choir, and has written a number of pieces for them. Recently he was commissioned by the CBSO to write an overture, The Joy of Christmas, which received a number of performances at their Christmas concerts in Symphony Hall in December 2010.
He has also received commissions from other choirs in the UK and the USA, and has been invited to write pieces for the Nidaros Cathedral Boys’ Choir in Trondheim, Norway.
Further information about his published choral pieces can be obtained from the Oxford University Press and Norsk Musikforlag. A number of pieces are listed, with music and recorded samples, on the ‘Compositions’ link at the top of this page.
PERFORMANCES THIS CHRISTMAS (2012)
(Please click on this link 
for access to password protected site for current and former members of the CBSO Chorus.)
