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Susan West, BMus Performance (Melb.), GradDip (Kodaly Insitute, Hungary), MEd Gifted and Talented (Charles Sturt)
Pedagogy

T: +61 2 6125 5776
E: Susan.West@anu.edu.au

Susan West brings to her role as Convener of the innovative Music in Primary Schools Programs over twenty-five years experience as a performer, teacher, composer and arranger. Her work in developing pre-tertiary music programs and post-graduate teacher training is at the cutting edge of music education with wide-ranging influences from traditional music philosophies, both ancient and modern, to holistic and therapeutic uses of music. Her philosophy centres on the idea that music-making is our birthright and that the role of music education is simply to support the natural wish for musical involvement.

Susan trained in music performance at the Melbourne University Conservatorium of Music and the Victorian College of the Arts and obtained a post-graduate degree in music education from the Kodaly Institute of Hungary. After working as a professional musician with the Western Australian Symphony Orchestra and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra she was invited to the Canberra School of Music in 1984 to help establish the Music Education Program. Recognizing a need for different and more successful forms of music education, she continued her studies, first at Charles Sturt University and later with the Institute for Music and Health, New York. This work led to the establishment of the Music in Schools Program and the Hand-in-Hand outreach program that focuses on uniting children and the community in shared, altruistic music making. Ms. West’s work has attracted both national and international interest and the impact and benefits of her programs are being studied by students from Australia and abroad. Her work is also being documented in a range of short films from Ronin Films, Australian.

School of Music faculty member since 1985.