Rob Thorne, MA (Ngāti Tumutumu, Tainui) has been playing, performing and composing with taonga pūoro for over 25 years. His debut album, Whāia Te Māramatanga (2014) was a practical and spiritual, solo exploration into the potential of ensembling for taonga pūoro by using looping technology that was critiqued as having “successfully re-imagined and reconstructed traditional Māori instrumental music for the 21st Century” (NZ Musician).

He currently has six albums to his name with a seventh about to be released, has made work for TV, short and feature films, been awarded an APRA Silver Scroll for Best Television Score and is one of only three New Zealand artists ever to showcase at WOMEX. Amongst others, he has collaborated with Raven Chacon, Dane Mitchell, Phil Dadson, Richard Nunns, Fis, Tania Giannouli, David Rothenberg, Anna Fält, Celeste Oram, Karl Sölve Steven, and Michael Morley, written for and performed with Orchestra Wellington, New Zealand String Quartet, and NZ Trio, and performed at Darmstädter Ferienkurse, CTM/Transmediale Berlin, Borderline Athens, Café Oto, Enjoy Jazz, The Unconformity Festival, MONA, Monash University Museum of Art, NZ Arts Festival, Auckland Arts Festival, Aotearoa Audio Arts Festival, and the New Zealand Governor General.

He was the Composer in Residence at the New Zealand School of Music 2016-17 and has presented conference keynotes for NZ Musicological Society, Association of Social Anthropologists of Aotearoa NZ and Australasian Jazz & Improvisation Research Network.

His existing recorded work continues to be licensed across New Zealand and the world for TV and film and to play in museum and gallery spaces, while having commissioned sound and AV work exhibited by Issue Project Room New York, STUK Leuven Belgium, Phoenix Art Museum Arizona, ANZAC Commemorations Gallipoli and Liquid Architecture, Melbourne.