Susan Torke grew up in East Aurora, New York and started playing the flute at the age of 10. She attended Interlochen National Music Camp and was a scholarship winner to the Chautauqua Institute. Susan has studied with Julius Baker, John Wion, Sam Baron, and Judith Mendenhall and was a Leverhulme Scholar at the Royal Academy of Music,studying with William Bennett, where she won the All Flutes Plus Flute Prize and all the prizes for chamber music with her wind quintet.
For the past 25 years, London has been Susan’s home and she has performed with the Royal Philharmonic, Royal Opera and Royal Birmingham Ballet Orchestras. Also, Camber Orchestra of Europe, London Bach Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, Ballet Rampart, English Classical Players, Northern Ballet, National Symphony Orchestra and Cantiere International d’Arte – Montepulciano. She has performed in over 15 West End Shows and recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, BBC Radio and TV and is in demand as a chamber musician travelling in Europe and the Far East. She has performed all the Brandenburg Concerti in Japan, with the Emerson String Quartet and with Yehudi Menuhin’s Live Music Now scheme for 15 years. She has recently been working on a project with the Australian composer, John Carmichael.
Susan has taught students from the age of 7-70 privately at home, in a local state school, at a private school and at the Junior Department of the Royal Academy of Music. She has been made an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music for her services to music and is on the Council for the British Flute Society.