Projects
The Los Angeles Clarinet Choir
The Los Angeles Clarinet Choir continues to push the boundaries of the genre through commissions and premieres. A 15-member group that Margaret Thornhill founded in 2005, the ensemble has a extensive performance history, including featured appearances at five International ClarinetFests (c) in Vancouver, Los Angeles, Austin, Orlando, and Knoxville. Their list of composer collaborations includes Matti Kovler, Erol Gurol, Edward Cansino, David Avshalomov, Barry Brisk, Mike Curtis, and Christin Hablewitz, as well as many talented arrangers.
Category V
Woodwind Quintet in Los Angeles, with Julie Long, flute, David Kossoff, oboe, Margaret Thornhill, clarinet, Nathan Campbell, horn, and John Campbell, bassoon. The group played together for 15 years, from 2006 to 2021.
Chamber Music Coaching
In 2022, Margaret was invited to be a core member of the faculty for the venerable Humboldt Chamber Music Workshop at Cal Polytechnic Humboldt. She was the clarinet coach for the Ashland Chamber Music Workshop from 2015-2019, and at weekend workshops for Chamber Musicians of Northern California from 2007--2019, the Santa Barbara Chamber Music Society from 2009-2015, the San Diego Chamber Music Workshop in 1980, and in the mid 1970s for Dr. Arthur Barnes’ Santa Cruz Chamber Music, as well as in past academic positions at Stanford University, UC Santa Cruz, and Concordia University.
Margaret is also available for hire as a private chamber music coach through the ACMP organization.
Articles in The Clarinet
In 2007, Margaret was invited by the previous editor of "The Clarinet" journal of the International Clarinet Association, Jim Gillespie, to create a Clarinet Choir column. Since then, she has written more than twenty articles, many of which zero in on her interest in new repertoire.
Margaret’s most recent article is a feature on the bass clarinet choir, the Improbable Beasts, scheduled for the March, 2023 issue. Readers with news about clarinet choirs or new compositions for clarinet ensemble should email her through the contact panel on her website.
Other Articles
Margaret has written pedagogic articles for other clarinet publications, some of which are available here. Her interest in innovative pedagogy and will also be reflected in her forthcoming blog.
New Projects in 2022
Craftsman Chamber Concerts
In late 2023, the Craftsman Chamber Concerts will be a new series, exploring Margaret's personal favorite "bucket list" of repertoire with treasured collaborators.
Woodwind Weekend
In 2022, Margaret created a newly-designed weekend workshop in advanced woodwind chamber music, with the Monterey Bay area as a location. Pre-assigned repertoire is a feature of this program (it is not a sight-reading workshop). Participation is by invitation. Please write for further information.
Past Projects
Claremont Clarinet Festival
Margaret Thornhill created this long-running project as a week-length, residential teaching workshop for adult clarinetists, focused on solo repertoire. It was designed as an opportunity to help grow real performance skills for clarinetists from a variety of backgrounds, including both highly trained college students and mature community players, a unique program concept at the time of its inception. CCF featured masterclasses, individual lessons, daily piano coachings, clarinet ensemble activities, and three live performances on the weekend. It became a popular summer conference offering on the Pomona College campus for more than a decade, serving more than 200 clarinetists over its long tenure, and its concerts drew a loyal audience from surrounding communities.
Matrix Chamber Ensemble
Matrix Chamber Ensemble was active from 1983 through 1991. The original core members were Margaret Thornhill and pianist Twyla Meyer, along with Susan Judy, soprano and Roland Kato, viola. In this configuration, the group received California Arts Council Touring Program sponsorship in 1984, playing concerts on local series and in Boise, Idaho. With grants from the Ahmanson Foundation and the National State County Partnership, the group produced an eclectic concert series at various venues in Los Angeles, with numerous local guest artists in a broad range of repertoire. In the 1986-87 season, Matrix also was invited to present a four-concert series at Loyola Marymount University produced by their public events office. During 1988-91, a later version of Matrix included Thornhill and Meyer, joined by Barry Socher, violin, and John Walz, cello, in programs that featured quartet and trio repertoire for that combination, as well as with guest artists.