The Friendships That She Treasured

Susan always wanted to stay in touch with her colleagues, many of whom she considered friends.  She would fuss over Mark Pearson’s apartment floods, rave about Terry Decima’s gorgeous living room and the fantastic food at Icarus, their favourite haunt.  She admired how interesting Helen Hodam was, loved sharing a great meal with Mark St. Laurent, and would close her eyes whenever D’Anna Fortunato sang in Italian because she loved everything Italian.  She enjoyed banter with Ed Zambara, was in awe of Gunther Schuller, adored touring with Donna Roll as they were usually in fits of laughter, and shared many a cup of tea with John Moriarty discussing their students in the opera program.   Susan enjoyed hearing stories about Bernie Barbeau’s family, appreciated Ray DeVoll’s artistic temperament and thought David McCloskey had some great technical ideas about singing.  Composer Daniel Pinkham was a childhood friend, they had spent summers together up on Lake Rescue, so she was thrilled to wind at NEC where he was on the faculty.  

Two of her closest friends were concert pianist Jacques Linder and composer Wes Fuller, whom she had worked with at Clark University.  Arguing over Trivial Pursuit, playing bridge with her father Ken Fisher as the fourth, traipsing around St. Petersburg, Florida from one antique shop to another…  she loved every minute of her time with them.  She was always fascinated with Wes’s friendship with Judy Garland but was never brave enough to ask him about it.  Many happy Christmases were spent together at her house, singing carols at the piano and sipping champagne.   She also had many other friends that she had met during her years at Clark, including Relly and Rita Raffman, Gerry Castonguay, Anna Granquist and Joanne May.

Throughout her life Susan loved many different styles of music.  Although classical was her first love, she was a big fan of jazz and enjoyed every minute that she was able to perform with the Allan Mueller Jazz Quartet.  

For a number of years she also taught privately in Newton Highlands with Jean Stackhouse who was not only incredibly brilliant, but talented, fascinating and serene.  Susan always looked forward to spending time with Jean because she was genuinely a wonderful person, plus a great pianist.  

Towards the end of her life, Susan preferred the company of her family, but so loved getting letters from her friends and former students.  She read every one multiple times and enjoyed hearing about the changes in their lives.  She was still listening to vocal recordings right up until her last days, soaking up enough music to last forever…