Hailed as “a strikingly gifted tenor, with a deeply moving, unblemished voice” (sfmusicjournal.com), Brian Thorsett is excelling in opera, oratorio and recital across the world. Since taking to the operatic stage, he has been seen and heard in over 100 diverse operatic roles, ranging from Monteverdi to Britten, back to Rameau and ahead again to works composed specifically for his talents.

As a concert singer Brian fosters a stylistically diversified repertoire of over 300 works, which has taken him to concert halls across the US and Europe. Recent and future engagements include Evangelist and soloist in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, St. John Passion, Mass in B minor, and several cantatas, Handel’s Messiah, the Requiems of Mozart and Verdi, Haydn’s Creation, Bruckner’s Te Deum, Mendelssohn's Elijah, Part’s Passio and the world premiere of Serj Tankian's Invocations.

An avid recitalist, Brian is closely associated with expanding the vocal-chamber genre and has been involved in premieres and commissions of Ian Venables, Hilary Tann, David Conte, Gordon Getty, Christopher Stark, Stracy Garrop and Shinji Eshima, among many others. His dedication to this project has resulted in over 200 new works in the past 10 years, nearly all of which have been published as well as performed by renowned artists across the globe. He also makes many concert appearances with SF Opera & Ballet Principal horn Kevin Rivard. Their interpretations of Britten's Serenade and Cancticle III have been called “impressive, captivating, transporting” (repeatperformances.org), “lifted to greatness” (sfcv.org), “arresting, fervent and eerie” (nffo.org), “so striking it managed to efface the original recording... a great rendition, sad and poetic” (sfciviccenter.blogspot.org). The duo will be seen in future concerts premiering Bourne to Shelley (Eshima), The Jolly Hunter (Holmes), Perceval (Bosc) and unearthing forgotten works for this combination of instruments.

Brian’s voice has been featured in film and commercials, being the artist for Soundiron studio's Voice of Rapture: The Tenor. Additionally, his numerous recordings have been well-received by BBC Music Magazine, Rolling Stone, Musical Opinion Quarterly, FanFare. He has released the albums Everyone Sang - The Vocal Music of David Conte; a collection of American song cycles for orchestra Nature, Love and Death; Rapture and Regret, featuring song cycles of Daron Hagen; October Skies featuring chamber music for tenor; a collaboration with System of a Down lead man Serj Tankian Invocations; a collection of settings of Tennyson on Splendid Tears, and several others.

Other projects include working with the Studio for the Early American Musical, which specializes in historically informed performances of early Broadway music. Brian co-edited with Eric Davis The Songs of Frank E. Tours, providing over forty beautiful songs to singers of all abilities.

He is a graduate of San Francisco Opera’s Merola Program, Glimmerglass Opera’s Young American Artist program, American Bach Soloists' Academy, the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme at Aldeburgh, England and spent two summers at the Music Academy of the West. Brian is currently Associate Professor at the School of Performing Arts at Virginia Tech and previously served on faculty at Santa Clara University and University of California at Berkeley.