Suzanne Thorpe is a musician, composer, educator and arts-activist who strives for instances of intimacy and understanding through a network of sonic signals. As an electro-acoustic flautist and sound artist, Thorpe enjoys working within the peripheral consciousness, exposing coexisting perspectives and concurrent realities via composition, performance and installation. Thorpe performs both acoustically and electronically, extending her instrument with an ever-evolving set-up of analogue and real-time software components.

Thorpe’s recent solo compositions are multi-channel works that employ psycho-acoustic phenomena and tuned filtering systems. Her research is in telematic, or distance performances, over the Internet, that engage transmitted biofeedback data. Her findings have been presented at ARTECH 2008 (Porto, Portugal), and she has been awarded the Frog Peak Collective Award, 2008 for her work.

As an improviser, Thorpe has performed with Chris Brown, Chris Cogburn, Rob Cambre, David Dove, Annette Krebs, Maggie Nicols, Liz Tomme, Bhob Rainey, Pauline Oliveros, Mike Bullock, Gino Robair, and Miya Masaoka among others. She was a 2008-featured performer at San Francisco’s Activating the Medium festival, performing with Zbigniew Karkowski, Anti-Matter, and Ulrich Krieger, and at Issue Project Room’s Floating Points festival, 2008, where her multi-channel composition Nautical Twilight was premiered.

As a founding member of Mercury Rev, Thorpe composed, performed, recorded, produced and toured with the band, from 1989 through 2001, earning numerous critical accolades and a gold record for 1998's Deserters' Songs. With Mercury Rev, Thorpe found herself sharing the stage with Bob Dylan, Hole, Spiritualized, Pavement, High Llamas, Dinosaur Jr., My Bloody Valentine, Porno for Pyros, Hum, Cat Power, Ride, Sonic Boom, Sonic Youth, and more.

Thorpe is currently one half of the flute and feedback duo thenumber46, with media artist Philip White. Their recording Bleach & Ammonia will be released on Tape Drift Records, 2009, and is also available for download. She can be heard as a member of The Wounded Knees, with Jimi Shields (Rollerskate Skinny, Lotus Crown), and D2 Affinity, with Chuck Johnson, as support for My Bloody Valentine, and in various configurations in-and-around New York City.

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