Sandy Thorburn

Sandy Thorburn (born September 24, 1963) is a Canadian composer, arranger, musical director, and academic, specializing in Canadian musical theatre. He has been resident musical director of The Thousand Islands Playhouse since 1986, and has musically directed numerous musicals including "Man of La Mancha", "Little Shop of Horrors", "Dads in Bondage", "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum", "The Shooting of Dan McGrew", "Anne of Green Gables" (1997, 1998, 2005), "Guys and Dolls" (1998, 1999), "Oliver!", "The Perilous Pirate's Daughter", "The Music Man", "The Beggar's Opera" (2006), the highly successful new Canadian musical "Anne and Gilbert" (2007), by [Nancy White] , Jeff Hochhauser, and Bob Johnston, Glorious!, and Les Miserables. He recently created the Canadian Musical Theatre Writer's Colony, which develops new Canadian musicals, at the Thousand Islands Playhouse.

He has taught at McMaster University in Hamilton Ontario, where he organized the "Over the Waves" international Conference on music in/and broadcasting, as well as at the University of Toronto, the University of Waterloo, the University of Western Ontario, and Wilfrid Laurier University. He holds a PhD in musicology from the University of Toronto, and is one of a very few Canadian academics who has 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 lives in Toronto with his wife, actor Ramona Gilmour-Darling, star of "The Big Comfy Couch" children's television program.