Born in
Trondheim, Thorsen was taught by Bjarne Fiskum before studying at
The Purcell School for Young Musicians in Hertfordshire, and later tutored by
György Pauk at the
Royal Academy of Music in London, where she won the Roth Prize and the Academy's highest award for performance, the DipRAM. In 1991 she founded the Leopold String Trio, subsequently leading it for 15 years. It toured extensively, playing at
Carnegie Hall, New York, the
Musikverein in Vienna, and the
Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. She won first prize at the Sion International Violin Competition in Switzerland in 2003, returning to her birth place three years later when she was recruited as a professor in the
Norwegian University of Science and Technology's Music Department. ==References==