Thoughts from Jean Stackhouse

I began accompanying voice lessons at the New England Conservatory for Susan in the mid 1970s while auditing a vocal literature course and being assigned to her studio. We worked well together and after that year I was fortunate to begin work as the studio accompanist for her private students. This continued at least one day a week until the last few years and retirement. I looked forward to those accompanying days. We had lunch together and found through the years we became dear friends, sharing Conservatory stories, news about our families, life and music in general. Those days also provided a good balance with my own teaching and playing. My husband Max and I enjoyed having Susan come visit us in our Berkshire house, our children knew her most of their lives and for years sang their own versions of “I lo-o-ove to sing” or “How are you to-day” with great affection for Susan and the vocal world. I always preferred playing as a collaborative pianist, and did not have aspirations to be a soloist. This accompanying was an opportunity for me to expand my knowledge of literature, play repertoire l I enjoyed, and offered a tremendous learning experience for me because so many things Susan shared in lessons could be applied to my own teaching at the piano.

Some of the most notable and extraordinary aspects of Susan's teaching were the simplicity, vocabulary, and clarity with which she explained things:

With her, a student could usually find ways to get to their “individual" sound. She spent at least half of each lesson on technical things. She wanted her students to believe that their sound meant something, was valuable. She was dedicated to facilitating their development during their formative years. I found that she was a very wise and honest teacher, guiding students as to what was possible as they grew into young artists, or were already into their adult musical lives. She helped them with repertoire they brought, prepared and supported auditions, and was extremely skillful in assigning material with which they could be successful.

She used lots of images, descriptions, and metaphors to help students find their way through technical and artistic challenges, getting them to be open, find their natural center, and sing. These were just a few of the ideas I had access to day after day and which had a deep influence on my own teaching, prompting me to think, create, and apply ideas and images with students at the keyboard. Being concerned with sound in music making, phrasing, honoring and developing musicality crosses all borders.

I would sometimes hear her try four or five different sounds around diction or placing a high note—“do it without the r”, or transposing the consonants in words to get the sound, but was extremely specific and detailed, and her singers sang with precision.

I always had a sense that teaching voice would be challenging because you are dealing with the complexity and abstractness of the instrument and the artist residing within the same person. But I think Susan heard everything!

Breath was, of course, related to phrasing. She was dedicated to rests, leaving out a note, or how to plan new phrasing. She was a shaper.

She talked with students about their speaking voices and relationship to their vocal cords.

Let’s not forget that she was also a superb mezzo! She was always very humble about that and claimed that she did not enjoy performing, but there were occasions when she would sing, and they were beautiful.

Positive, warm, humorous—students liked coming to the lessons and I loved playing for them. It was the place to be. I am so grateful for my time there, as we all were, and for the opportunity for decades to have had Susan in my life as musical colleague and close friend.

The world was a richer place because she was in it. We are all missing her already.