Biography
Over the last few years Pamela Thorby has established herself as one of the world’s leading recorder players. Her stylish virtuosity can be heard on numerous recordings of music ranging from the medieval period to the present day.
Pamela records as a solo artist for LINN Records. Her Baroque Recorder Concertos disc (CKD21 received outstanding reviews ("a world-class performer" Gramophone) and was a Gramophone Critic’s Choice. Handel Recorder Sonatas ("set to become a benchmark" The Independent) with Richard Egarr was ‘BBC Music Magazine Chamber Music Disc of the Month’ and a Gramophone Critic’s Choice. A disc of 17th century repertoire entitled Garden of Delights with harpist Andrew Lawrence-King has just been released on LINN to outstanding reviews.
Pamela was the driving force behind the acclaimed Palladian Ensemble from 1991 to 2007. The group achieved international success with over 1000 performances around the world and 10 albums for LINN Records.
Pamela’s ability to assimilate many styles of music and her skills as an improviser have led to her work with groups such as the modern jazz quartet Perfect Houseplants. She has appeared with them many times as a guest and features on their album New Folk Songs. Pamela is a featured soloist on all of Karl Jenkins’ crossover Adiemus albums. Her appearances on these million-selling albums make her arguably the most listened to recorder player in the world. Pamela is the recorder soloist for Kiri te Kanawa’s Kiri sings Karl released on EMI.
Future plans include a concert performances and a recording of Vivaldi A minor Concerto, RV 312 and A mnor recorder and basson trio with La Serenissima , releasing AMMONITE - an album of folk/jazz/classical new works played composed by Pamela, new commissions for recorder and string quartet and duo performances with jazz pianist, Huw Warren.
She returned to teach recorder as a principal instrument at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama within a few years of graduating and is now a GSMD Visiting Professor, teaches York University recorder students and private students at home in York.
See Media section for PDFs of 250/400/500 word biographies.
Reviews
"I went to hear Pamela Thorby and Sonnerie playing some of the works on the CD at the Wigmore Hall recently and found no differences in quality or style between her live and recorded performances. Her technique takes the breath away in concert just as is does on disc."
Early Music Today
"Freshness and spontaneity light up every moment. The music rocks; but always in the best possible taste."
The Scotsman
"A wonderful artist at her very best: relaxed, stylish, unpredictable and distinctive of tone."
Independent on Sunday
"Pamela Thorby's sensual recorder playing, complete with improvised flourishes and infinitely flexible dynamic shadings, is out of the top drawer."
Music Week
"I can't for the life of me imagine how this glorious recording could be bettered."
BBC Music Magazine Chamber Disc of the Month (Handel Recorder Sonatas)
"…the fabulously skillful recorder player, Pamela Thorby"
San Diego Reader
"…the renowned recorder player Pamela Thorby - an immense virtuoso of the once-humble classroom instrument."
The Herald
"…euphonious, detailed and beautifully decorated performances."
Atlanta Audio Society
"Pamela Thorby's solo pieces, despatched here with a breathtaking command of the intricate and demanding passagework, were utterly charming."
Gramophone
"The vivaciously phrasing recorder playing of Pamela Thorby offered a huge palette of tone colours from the fresh sound of the soprano to the velvet sound of the lower recorders. Both a virtuoso and an elegant stylist."
Tyroler Tageszeitung
"Pamela Thorby's performance demonstrated technical and ornamental flamboyance, culminating in a breathless finale."
Recorder Magazine
"Pamela Thorby has given the recorder a status in the Baroque repertoire that it deserved to recapture. Childhood memories of the instrument are banished by her wonderfully mellow, pliant sound and her easy musicality. She demonstrates versatility and virtuosity beyond question and is imaginatively accompanied by Richard Egarr, who also contributes a sparkling account of the E major Harpsichord Suite. One feels constantly gripped by the music, as if every single note matters……74 minutes of intense brilliance."
Gramophone (Handel Recorder Sonatas) Editor’s Choice
"It is some time since a recording of baroque ensemble music has given me so much pleasure and I strongly recommend you to share it - and with me to recall the line: 'rarely, rarely comest thou, spirit of delight', for that is what this disc conveys."
Gramophone (Baroque Recorder Concertos) Editor’s Choice
The most impressive individual contributions however came from Thorby whose sounds were quite dazzling in solo and ensemble pieces.
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
"Two Vivaldi concertos followed. In both the charismatic, elfin Pamela Thorby was outstanding, effervescent in the virtuoso movements, elegaic and tender in the largos."
Halifax Evening Courier
"In fact, the performances I heard, of Baroque music by Bach, Marin Marais and JeanBaptiste Antoine, were magnetic, not least because of the quality of playing by the musicians : recorder player Pamela Thorby, violinist Rodolfo Richter, guitarist William Carter and viola da gamba player Susanne Heinrich.
The dazzling virtuosity of Thorby and Richter in the many dialogues and interchanges in the course of their performance, was staggering. The dead-centre accuracy and soulful playing in what we might call the engine room of the music, the guitar and gamba, was breathtaking and moving. It occurred to me that if this had been rhetorical, highly charged, Romantic music of a later century, rather than intimately discreet music of the Baroque period, the musicians who unleashed these levels of expertise and acrobatic skill would be regarded as superstars."
The Herald (Review from final season 2006/2007 with the Palladian Ensemble)
See Media section for downloadable PDFs of reviews.