Biographical Information

Conrad Susa was born in Springdale, PA, on April 26, 1935. Introduced to music at an early age, he performed with his local church, first as a choirboy and then as an organist while at Springdale High School. His music education continued at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now known as Carnegie Mellon University), where he graduated Cum Laude in 1957. Upon completing his degree, Susa attended on scholarship the Connecticut College Modern Dance Festival, earning a diploma following studies on composing for dance performances. He also played for festival dance classes at that time. Susa continued his education at the prestigious Juilliard School under the guidance of William Bergsma and Vincent Persichetti. His work as a composer began in earnest during this time, garnering him awards such as the George Gershwin Memorial Scholarship, two E.J. Benjamin awards, the Marion Ferschl prize, the Alexander Gretchaninoff First Prize, and a Ford Foundation Fellowship between his enrollment and completion of his MS degree in 1961. Also in 1961, Susa was chosen as one of ten composers selected by the Ford Foundation to participate in a festival honoring Igor Stravinsky in Santa Fe, NM. During this time in 1959, Susa also began to work with the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego as the Composer-in-Residence, a post he held until 1994. Along with the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, he worked as the Musical Director for the APA-Phoenix Repertory Theatre Company, New York, NY (1961-1968) and the American Shakespeare Festival Theatre and Academy (1969-1971). Susa also created compositions for theatre, documentary films, and chorale groups, and television (well over a hundred works). His works have been performed in Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Stratford Shakepeare Festival, the Seattle Repertory Company, the American Conservatory Theatre, the Guthrie Theatre, the Center Theatre Group, and the Mark Taper Forum, among others.

Alongside his compositions above, Susa composed five operas. His first opera, Transformations", based on poems by Anne Sexton (also his most performed opera) was commissioned by the Minnesota Opera in 1973. The Minnesota Opera also commissioned his next work, "Black River: A Wisconsin Idyll" in 1975 (libretto by Richard Street). In 1984, Susa collaborated with Street for the San Francisco Opera/PEPSICO Summer Fare joint commission of Frederico Garcia Lorca's "The Love of Don Perlimplin", with Street adapting his libretto from Lorca's text. In 1994, San Francisco Opera commissioned Susa's "The Dangerous Liaisons" (libretto by Phillip Littell). The original cast included Thomas Hampson, Frederica von Stade and Renée Fleming and was broadcast on the PBS program "Great Performances" later that year. The same year, Susa collaborated with Littell to compose "The Wise Women", a retelling of the story of the Three Wise Men of Bethlehem.

Susa was actively involved in music education. He served as the Resource Personnel and Field Director for the Artists-in-School Program at Lincoln Center (1967-1972) and the Director of West Coast Services for Young Audiences, Inc. (1974-1979). From 1988, Susa served as Professor of Composition at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, a position he would hold until his death on November 21, 2013.