The University of Western Australia

Assoc/Prof Suzanne Wijsman

Associate Professor
Academic Staff (Music)

Contact details

Address

Academic Staff (Music)
The University of Western Australia (M413)
35 Stirling Highway
CRAWLEY WA 6009
Australia

Phone

6488 2061

Email

suzanne.wijsman@uwa.edu.au

Qualifications

BMus Oberlin Conserv. of Mus., BA Oberlin Coll., MA Mich., MusM DMA Roch.

Biography

Cellist Suzanne Wijsman was born in the USA and received her formal musical education at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, International Cello Centre and the Eastman School of Music. Her cello teachers included Paul Katz, Jane Cowan, Steven Doane and Richard Kapuscinski. She also received a BA with Highest Honors in Religion from Oberlin College, and an MA in Near Eastern Studies from the University of Michigan, where she was the recipient of Rackham and Cameron Fellowships.
The recipient of a Fulbright Award for study in the UK, Suzanne has performed extensively in the USA, Australia and Europe, in chamber music or as recitalist. In the USA she was a member of the Augustine String Quartet from 1985-1989, which won prizes in the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and the Cleveland Quartet Competition, was a semi-finalist at the 1989 Banff International String Quartet Competition, and twice received fellowships to the Aspen Centre for Advanced Quartet Studies, as well as the Yale summer school at Norfolk. Her chamber music studies were with members of the Cleveland, Tokyo and Juilliard Quartets. From 1990-96, Suzanne played with the acclaimed Stirling String Quartet, which toured several times in Australia for Musica Viva, internationally to Italy and South Korea, and presented frequent concerts and ABC radio broadcasts. She also served as a lecturer as the Western Australian Conservatorium of Music, and was invited to serve as a visiting faculty member at the Eastman School of Music in 1992.
Since joining the staff of the School of Music in 1997, Suzanne has performed with Ensemble Arcangelo, Western Australia’s premier early music group, as well as in numerous local chamber music concerts. She has been a chief investigator in a research project on French baroque music funded by the Australian Research Council, recording and researching French baroque chamber music included on a recent series of 5 CDs, The Perfection of Music: Masterpieces of the French Baroque in collaboration with ABC Classics, released 2007-2009. Students of Suzanne Wijsman have pursued further studies in Europe and North America as some of the world's most prestigious music schools and have gained employment as performers or teachers in Australia and overseas.
Suzanne has presented papers on musicians’ health issues at conferences in Australia and the USA. Along with Dr. Bronwen Ackermann of the University of Sydney, Suzanne is leading a major national project 'A Musicians' Health Curriculum Initiative' focused on improving performance health education in Australian tertiary music schools, funded by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council.
Suzanne is engaged in ongoing resarch on the iconography and codicology of the Oppenheimer Siddur, a little-knwon and richly illuminated 15th-century Hebrew manuscript in Oxford's Bodleian Library. She spent part of 2009 in residence at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies as a visiting scholar, and is a contributor to the 2009-2010 exhibition Crossing Borders at the Bodleian Library.
Upcoming plans in 2010 include conference papers for the Australian Association of Jewish Studies and Performing Arts Medicine Association conferences, and an invited public lecture at the Bodleian Library.

Key research

The Oppenheimer Siddur-Oxford Bodleian MS Opp. 776: iconography (including musical illustrations), codicology, artistic production

Publications

"The Oppenheimer Siddur: Artist and Scribe in a 15th-century Hebrew Prayer Book", Crossing Borders Piet van Boxel and Sabine Arndt, eds. (Oxford, 2009)

"Violoncello, II", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Stanley Sadie, ed. (London, 2001)

Roles, responsibilities and expertise

Coordinator of String Studies, School of Music

Funding received

Australian Learning and Teaching Priority Projects Grant, with Dr. Bronwen Ackermann, University of Sydney (2009-2011) $220,000

Languages

French, Hebrew, Russian

Memberships

Australian Soceity for Performing Arts Healthcare (Executive Committee), Performing Arts Medicine Association (North America), Australian Strings Association, Chamber Music America, Australian Association of Jewish Studies, ANZAMEMS

Previous positions

Lecturer, Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Edith Cowan University

Teaching

Teaching areas: performance studies, postgraduate research

Useful links

www.health.music.uwa.edu.au/home

New and noteworthy

NEW! ALTC Priority Project Musicians' Health Curriculum Initiative website goes live:
www.health.music.uwa.edu.au/home

Current projects

ALTC Priority Project Musicians' Health Curriculum Initiative

The Oppenheimer Siddur: Scribe as Artist in a Hebrew Manuscript

Research profile

Research profile and publications