Suzanne Thorpe
Suzanne Thorpe is an award-winning electroacoustic flutist and composer, as well as a researcher and educator, whose work migrates between fixed, improvised, performed and installed forms. She employs an evolving array of technologies, listening for sound qualities and timbres, and moments to introduce them to each other. Drawing upon traditions of soundscape, land art, and improvisation, as well as research in new materialism, environmental ethics and systems inquiry, she composes works that reference the dynamic relationships between sound, place and its inhabitants.
Biography
Thorpe has performed and presented her work internationally at a variety of venues, from the Reading Festival in the U.K., to the New Museum in N.Y., and has performed with a host of musicians, from J Mascis to Pauline Oliveros, and more. Thorpe has released over 20 recordings, and was a founding member of critically acclaimed Mercury Rev, with whom she performed, recorded and toured from 1989 - 2001. She has been awarded a gold record for 1998's Deserter's Songs, the Frog Peak Collective Award for innovative research, and residencies and fellowships for her own work from Harvestworks Digital Media Foundation, New Music USA, and the MAP Foundation. Having earned an MFA in Electronic Music & Media from Mills College, she is also a certified Deep Listening Instructor. Currently, she is a Ph.D Candidate at UC San Diego, where she focuses on critical theory and systems inquiry as applied to sound, and serves as Co-Founder/Director of TECHNE, an organization that introduces young women and girls to technology-focused art making, musical improvisation, and listening. Thorpe was a visiting faculty member at Bennington for Fall 2017.