Susan Allen is Associate Dean and Instructor in harp at the California Institute of the Arts. Throughout her thirty-year career she has built a reputation as a virtuoso harpist, and has appeared with many of the world’s foremost musicians in a number of fields, from fellow classical musicians to jazz musicians like Dave Brubeck and world-renowned performers like violinist L. Shankar.
Susan Allen, from the California Institute of the Arts, briefly highlights her education and career path. She teaches theoretical studies in music, critical thought about improvisation, harp, and chamber music at Cal Arts. She discusses her musical upbringing in Santa Barbara and went to school at the New England Conservatory and later transferred to Cal Arts. Also in this segment, she discusses her career as a professional harpist and the different ensembles she has performed in.
Susan Allen, from the California Institute of the Arts, gives advice to aspiring artists and their parents. She believes going into music is a rewarding career and if music is your main passion you should go for it. She also believes that pursuing a career in music takes guts and self-confidence and it is very important to always ask questions.
Susan Allen, from the California Institute of the Arts, notes the importance of exposing yourself to diverse forms of artistic expression. She explains that not all expression is aural but can also be visual or tactile. She emphasizes engaging all the senses in expression and encourages her students to take classes outside of their discipline.
Susan Allen, from the California Institute of the Arts, talks about what she looks for in aspiring students. When a student is playing for her she looks for things she's never heard before and has a quality that indicates a skill or a potential for a specific skill. When she interviews potential students she looks for those students that question what they do and take part in critical thought. She also discusses the notion of voice and how she encourages the intuitive side of music making.
Susan Allen, Associate Dean at the California Institute of the Arts, discusses how world music is used in the Cal Arts curriculum, and shares her thoughts on why all music students should spend some time exploring sounds and techniques that fall outside the Western tradition.
A native of Santa Barbara, California, Susan Allen is well known throughout the world for her world premiere performances of new music for harp on television, radio and at major music festivals. Long-term collaborations with composers James Tenney, Earl Kim, Mel Powell, Harold Budd, Ruth Lomon, Morton Feldman, William Thomas McKinley and many others have yielded her premieres and recordings of major 20th century repertoire for harp.Since 1988 she has been Associate Dean of the California Institute of the Arts' School of Music and is a founder/administrator of the CalArts Community Arts Partnership Chamber Music program in the Santa Clarita Valley. At the California Institute of the Arts, she appears as harpist with the CalArts New Century Players, and teaches improvisation ensemble, theory, music pedagogy, Performer/Composer forum, chamber music and harp.
