Born in Copenhagen in 1953, Nicholas C. K. Thorne settled in the United States in 1963. He studied with William Thomas McKinley, John Heiss and Donald Martino at the Berklee Schoal of Music and the New England Conservatory in Boston, and later at Tanglewood with Gunther Schuller.
Influenced from childhood by a wide variety of styles, Thorne has performed extensively as a pianist and guitarist in rock and jazz groups. He studied improvisation with Pat Metheny. His compositions are characterised by their eclecticism, emotional directness and compelling rhythms. His Three Love Songs for solo piano demonstrate a spontaneity that borders on improvisation, albeit while avoiding the lyricism that the work’s title might suggest. In other works for orchestra, chambre ensemble or solo instruments, he unites tonality with atonality, popular traditions and classical music.
His love of nature—he lives in Marshfield, a small town in northern Vermont—is often manifest in his work. Pieces such as The Voices of Spring, Rain Sketches and Songs from the Mountain evoke a sense of fear and mystery, occasionally bringing to mind the “lapidified silence of the mountains,” and occasionally the “vocal linearity” of the crisp northern winds.
Thorne has been commissioned by numerous orchestras and ensembles, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, for whom he composed Revelations in 1987.