Elaine Thornburgh

Elaine Thornburgh is an American keyboardist; she teaches harpsichord at Stanford University. As a soloist, she was semi-finalist in the Sixth International Harpsichord Competition in Bruges, Belgium in 1980, and she also received a National Endowment of the Arts Solo Recitalist Grant in 1984 .

Thornburgh studied harpsichord with Alan Curtis and Gustav Leonhardt, fortepiano with Malcolm Bilson. She had an independent major in Baroque Studies at the University of California at Berkeley and received her Masters in Music degree from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music where she specialized in harpsichord and fortepiano. From 1981 to 1982 she served on the music faculty at the University of California at Santa Cruz. In 1983 Thornburgh co-founded Humanities West, an organization devoted to exploring our cultural heritage through interdisciplinary programs in the arts and humanities. As President of Humanities West, she has presented programs on 18th-century Venice, Rembrandt's Amsterdam, Thomas Jefferson, Mozart, Handel's London, and Versailles. Thornburgh has recorded for Koch International Classics harpsichord performances of Sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti and of Grounds and Variations by William Byrd and, accompanying soprano Judith Nelson on the fortepiano, Haydn’s English Love Songs. Her Scarlatti CD was voted Critic’s Choice in 1991 by Gramophone.