, oboist, entrepreneur and founder of and co-founder of Dúo León is a versatile performer and musician. Susan’s strengths are many, including business owner, writer, and new music pioneer.
As an entrepreneur and an advocate for new music, Susan has worked to create new, interesting and relevant chamber music opportunities for herself and her colleagues. Chione Quintet performed live on Classical Minnesota Public Radio within it’s first seven months as an ensemble and most recently represents Classical MPR through their school residency program Class Notes. During the heart of the pandemic they teamed up with quintets across 4 time zones creating the Breathe Collective. Our goal is to engage underrepresented and marginalized composers in the creation of new works for winds that highlight the significance of breath within a cultural narrative around systemic racism, police brutality against the black community, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Duo Leon avidly promotes new music and premiered Ben Osterhouse’s Fancy Mouse at a Schubert Club Courtroom Concert in 2019. They will premiere Katherine Bergman’s Hidden Currents in 2021, written about the Mississippi River during the winter.
Susan is the Oboe Professor at °¼Í¹ÊÓƵ and Northwestern College in Northern Iowa, and at Hamline University in Saint Paul, MN. She is a sought out oboe teacher in the Twin Cities as her Chromatic Fusion Oboe Studio boasts students who have attended honor bands throughout Minnesota and Iowa including the prestigious University of Minnesota Honor Band. Additionally, her students have had the honor of being accepted into the MN All-State Bands and Orchestra. As a clinician and coach, Susan has been on faculty at Athena Music and Leadership Camp, ISD 622’s Beginning Band Camp and has coached the MN All-State Concert Band oboe student for the last four years.
Susan had the opportunity to attend Interlochen Arts Academy as a high school senior, where she studied with Daniel Stolper. She holds a Bachelors of Communications and Applied Music from the University of Minnesota, where she studied with Basil Reeve. Other principal instructors have included Andréa Banke, Roger Roe and Jeffrey Paul.
Susan lives in West St. Paul with her daughter and their clan of cats. In addition to music one of her passions is traveling. She and her daughter have the goal of traveling to all 423 National Park Sites, and they have a good start with close to 200 under their belt!