His productions included Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail in 1954, with Teresa Stich-Randall and Rudolf Schock in leading roles.
Thurn prepared in 1953 the choir of the NWDR for Wagner's Lohengrin, with soloists Maud Cunitz, Schock, Margarete Klose, Josef Metternich and Gottlob Frick, conducted by Wilhelm Schüchter.
The Requiem by Hector Berlioz was performed by Nicolai Gedda, the radio choirs and the Kölner Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester, conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos.
[9] In 1960, Thurn and Horst Sellentin founded the boys' choir of the NDR, later called Hamburger Knabenchor St. Nikolai [de].
In Thurn's last concert with the NDR Chor before his retirement in 1965, he conducted a cappella music from Josquin des Prez to Krzysztof Penderecki's Stabat Mater.