Dr. Thatchatham Silpsupan

Thatchatham Silpsupan is a composer and artist-researcher based in Chiang Mai, Thailand. His main artistic research focus on sounds that are situated outside the conventional sonic paradigm of beauty. Recently, he is interested in the notion of rethinking New Music in the postcolonial world through the work itself, the production, and its ecosystem. His works (music, installation, research, curation, and lecture) have been published, promoted, and exhibited by organizations and festivals such as Thailand Research Fund (TRF), Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre (SAC), Kichijoji: Person-Specific Sound Performances at Maiiam Contemporary Art Museum (Chiang Mai), TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN at Bangkok CityCity Gallery, BRANDNEW Art Project, 365 Days: LIFE MUSE program with Baan Norg Collaborative Arts & Culture, Orienting Beethoven Workshop and Conference (Munich), the Goethe Institute’s Asian Composers Showcase (Tongyeong), the YST SEA Golden Age Symphony and Performers(‘) Present 2023 (Singapore), INTACT 2023 at Bangkok Art & Culture Centre (BACC), Harvard Summer Composition Institute, the International Academy of Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble, Hong Kong Young Composers Program. The Manila Composer Lab, the Ensemble TIMF Academy, the Berkeley New Music Project, Asian Music Festival (Yokohama), International New Music Festival (St. Petersburg), Beijing Modern Music Festival, SoundBridge (Kuala Lumpur), Yogyakarta Contemporary Music Festival, and Thailand International Composition Festival. In addition, he is a long-term collaborator of media artist Arnont Nongyao that has resulted in a number of local and regional projects supported by Outernational (Berlin) with Trickster Orchestra and Elisa Erkelenz, Ensemble Asia Orchestra and Hanoi Collective Orchestra with Otomo Yoshihide, Japan Foundation Asia Center and Chiang Mai Art Conversation with Ongoing Art Center Tokyo.    

Currently, Thatchatham is leading a sound and time-based media and an Assistant Professor at the Department of Media Arts and Design, Faculty of Fine Arts, Chiang Mai University. He holds a Ph.D. in music from the University of California at Berkeley where he studied with Ken Ueno, Franck Bedrossian, Edmund Campion, and Cindy Cox. He also studied at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music at National University of Singapore and the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University.