Susan Eichhorn Young-Once More with Feeling-

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Susan's introduction to the world of theatre began as a child, as she carried to rehearsals the scripts for the plays her dramaturge father was directing and producing. She became his assistant and often read lines for the actors who were not at certain rehearsals! When she was 4, her dad needed a child extra for an opening scene and her feet hit the boards; and the rest, as they say, is history!

Coming from a family steeped in theatrical tradition gave Susan a rich and multi-dimensional upbringing. She was introduced to Shakespeare and Moliere, developing roles from Ophelia to Titania to a witch in the Scottish play, and several leading ladies from Moliere's comedies. She has developed roles created by Tennessee Williams, Dan Greenberg, Neil Simon, Anne-Marie McDonald, Sam Shepherd, Ken Ludwig and Tom Stoppard, to name just a few.

Some of Susan's earliest musical memories were listening to the radio and hearing Maria Callas singing Bellini's Norma, as well as listening to Mahalia Jackson, Johnny Mathis, Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald and Billy Holiday. She loved old movie musicals and listened and watched the artistry of Judy Garland, Rosemary Clooney, Julie Andrews, Shirley Jones and many others. She began piano studies at the age of 8 and was on her way to becoming a pianist, rews, Shirley Jones and many others. She began piano studies at the age of 8 and was on her way to becoming a pianist, with Horowitz, Ashkenazy and Dinu Lipatti as inspirations.

Her voice and her piano walked hand in hand, until the many hours of piano practicing caught up and caused chronic tendinitis and she had to make a choice between which to pursue more fully: she chose singing, or singing chose her! Her voice took her from her theatrical roots of music theatre and carried her to opera and back to cabaret.

In pursuing these artistic developments, Susan realized that she had a great passion for teaching - a legacy frm her father - and began exploring that path which paralleled her performance studies.

She has somehow combined being a mother and a wife with developing a performance and directorial and teaching/adjudicating/workshop career throughout North America, Europe and China. She has earned three diplomas from the Royal Conservatory of Music, in piano performance, voice performance and vocal pedagogy; a Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance with Great Distinction from the University of Saskatchewan and a Masters of Music in Voice Performance and Literature from the University of Western Ontario. She has worked with- and studied under- coaches and teachers and directors in all aspects of the business from all over the world in master classes, workshops, summer intensives, and private coaching and mentoring.

She has sung operatic roles in concert halls and opera houses from Purcell's Dido, to Mozart's Countess and Fiordiligi, to Puccini's Musetta and Suor Angelica, to world premiere's like Jaffe's Mary Shelley Opera.

She has performed in the theatrical works of Sondheim and Kurt Weill, as well as Rogers and Hart, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, to Jerry Herman, Cy Coleman, Leonard Bernstein, Kander & Ebb, and more!

Her love of the intimacy of the cabaret stage has led to critical acclaim and she has developed characters in French and German and American cabaret, including giving a world premiere to Chester Biscardi's Modern Love Songs in her native Canada with pianist Mark Payne. Her top selling cabaret album, Taking My Turn, recorded with award-winning music director/pianist Alan Johnson, is available worldwide, and was produced by Grammy-award winning tenor, Thomas Young.

She has directed and been artistic director for galas, operas and music theatre - from Mozart's Magic Flute to Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti, to Kander & Ebb's Cabaret.

And there is alway more to do!!!!

Currently Susan has a thriving private studio in New York City, where she works with singers in opera, music theatre, jazz, pop/rock and the recording industry, and a satellite studio in Toronto. She writes an online blog about the theatre and she teaches at CAP21, the Music Theatre studio at Tisch School of the Arts, NYU.

She is writing a one-woman cabaret for herself that, with any luck and a little bit more time to rehearse and fine-tune, will premiere before the end of 2009!

She is a very proud mother of a beautiful daughter, Erin, who is following the theatrical journey on a path that is uniquely hers! And in her time off, she loves a glass of wine in the sun room with the love of her life, Thomas Young.

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