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The American soprano and music teacher, Susan Maria Bender, obtained her Bachelor of Music degree in Music Education from University of Iowa in Iowa City; and her Master of Music degree in Music Performance from University of Maryland in College Park. She was a Metropolitan Opera National Council Winner in 1986.
In 1986, Susan Bender debuted with the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra in a concert of operatic arias. From 1985 to 1989, she was a member of the United States Navy Band Sea Chanter Chorus in Washington, D.C. and toured with their premiere wind ensemble as their soloist on three national tours and performed for international dignitaries. Her Professional Experience includes: Les Violons de Lafayette (specializing in French Baroque opera performance practice); The Folger Consort (specializing in music before 1600); The Washington Bach Consort (Director: J. Reilly Lewis), 20th Century Consort at the Smithsonian (specializing in the works of living composers); Iowa Bach Festival; The International Handel Festival at the University of Iowa; The Washington National Opera; The Metropolitan Opera Council Auditions and Winner’s Concert; Interact Theatre Company (specializing in the works of Gilbert and Sullivan); Signature Theater (specializing in the works of Stephen Sondheim); The Stony Brook Bach Festival; The Unruly Music Festival in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She is Twice-nominated actress in a leading role in a musical by the Washington Theatre Guild’s Helen Hayes Awards.
Susan Bender serves as Associate Professor of Music/ Professor of Voice at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. As a teacher of voice, her students have won many Maryland, Wisconsin and Mid-Atlantic NATS awards and have gone on to study and work at Indiana University, Northwestern (Chicago), University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, University of North Carolina- Greensboro, The Catholic University, the Washington Opera Chorus, The Kennedy Center, The Metropolitan Opera and on Broadway. Her Research Interests: Solo cantatas of J.S. Bach; Solo songs and chamber music of Samuel Barber; French Baroque opera and performance practice.
In addition, Susan Bender is Artistic Consultant at American Gothic Performing Arts Festival, Ottumwa, Iowa (since 2018); Reviewer at Oxford University Press for IPA for Singers manuscript proposals; Regional Governor at National Association of Teachers of Singing (since 2020); Master Adjudicator at Wisconsin State Music Association (since 2017).
Recordings: Guest Soloist for the 21st Century Consort, Stephen Albert’s To Wake the Dead; Gluck’s Orphée et Euridice (1774 version in French) (Naxos, 2002); The Canticle of the Sun, music of Amy Beach (Albany Records, 1998).
Publications: Karna, Duane R., Bender, Susan (contributing author): The Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet in the Choral Rehearsal (Scarecrow Press; now Roman and Littlefield, Contributing author of the Italian chapter, 2012) |
