Suzanne Ciani

Born in Indiana in 1946 and raised in Quincy, Massachusetts, Suzanne Ciani trained in piano and composition before settling between California and New York, where she from the early 1970s developed pioneering work around electronic synthesis. Early associated with Don Buchla's instruments, Suzanne Ciani builds music at the crossroads of ambient, avant-garde, electronics and new age, with particular attention to sound space and moving textures. Her career spans experimental stage as well as cinema, television and the creation of sound signatures for advertising, a field in which she composed notably in the 1970s and 1980s. After early pieces like Voices of Packaged Souls (1970), she released Seven Waves (1982), then The Velocity of Love (1986), Neverland (1988), Pianissimo (1990) and Hotel Luna (1991), which mark a gradual shift toward more melodic forms where the piano takes more space without vanishing her electronic approach. After settling in California, Suzanne Ciani pursues a regular discography on her Seventh Wave label, while returning to the foreground in the 2010s with archive reissues, quadraphonic performances and collaborations such as Sunergy with Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith in 2016. Suzanne Ciani thus remains linked to a live practice based on improvisation, spatialization and a sonic writing that is both fluid, contemplative and highly constructed.