Susan Hoeppner

Susan Hoeppner

Susan Hoeppner. Flutist, born Winnipeg 19 May 1963; BMUS (Juilliard) 1985.

Background and Honours

Susan Hoeppner grew up in Calgary and began playing the flute when she was 6 years old, starting private lessons at age 7. In 1981, she was the woodwind winner of the Calgary Kiwanis Music Festival Rose Bowl award, and in 1983 she won the Canadian Music Competition Stepping Stone award. She made her New York debut at Town Hall in April of that year.

She attended masterclasses with Louis Moyse, Geoffrey Gilbert, Robert Aitken, and Julius Baker with whom she studied at The Juilliard School, graduating in 1985. She was awarded first prize in the Serge and Olga Koussevitsky Competition by the Musician's Club of New York (1987), and in 1989 she shared second prize for flute with Leslie Newman (no first awarded) in the CBC Young Performer's Competition.

Hoeppner has performed on an 18k gold Yamaha flute, and a 14k gold Haynes flute. In 2010 she was the Frederick Harris Music Company Canadian representative for their flute series Overtones at the National Flute Association in California. In January 2012, she was named a Haynes Artist, the first Canadian to receive this honour, and she will perform, present masterclasses and make other appearances for the renowned Boston based flute makers William S Haynes Company.

Solo and Chamber Music Performance

Susan Hoeppner has performed with such Canadian orchestras as the Toronto Symphony, the Calgary Philharmonic, l'Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal, the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, and the Regina Symphony, and has been a guest soloist internationally with the Lisbon Radio Orchestra (Portugal), the Orquesta de Camera (Buenos Aires, Argentina), Northern Lights Music Festival Orchestra (Mexico), the Sacramento Symphony, and the New York Chamber Orchestra (USA) among others.

As a chamber musician she has collaborated with pianists Anton Kuerti, Marc-André Hamelin; singers Measha Brueggergosman, Ben Heppner, Richard Margison; harpist Judy Loman; guitarist Simon Wynberg; violist Steven Dann; and collaborative pianists Lydia Wong and Robert Kortgaard.

Canadian composers feature in her repertoire, among them Srul Irving Glick, Michael Conway Baker, and Marjan Mozetich. In 2011, she presented the world premiere of Christos Hatzis' flute concerto Departures at the Japan Flute Convention with the Kyoto Symphony.

Hoeppner has recorded extensively for Marquis Classics, EMI Classics, Grammophon AB BIS, JVC Victor and the King Record labels. Her recording American Flute Masterpieces received a 2012 Juno nomination in the category Classical Album of the Year: Solo or Chamber Ensemble.

Teaching

Susan Hoeppner has taught flute and chamber music at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Music flute beginning in 1990/1. In 2010, she was named to the Faculty of the Royal Conservatory of Music's Glenn Gould School, and has given summer courses at Domaine Forget (Quebec), and at the Julius Baker masterclasses in New York as well as masterclasses at the Victoria Conservatory of Music (2009).

Selected Discography

The Sea in the Spring: Japanese Music for Flute and Guitar with Rachel Gauk. Grammofon AB BIS. 1999

Serenade with the Canadian Chamber Ensemble. EMI 1999, re-released Marquis (Mar 301) 2003

Fantasie française with pianist Lydia Wong. Marquis (Mar 299). 2004

Musique de chambre française with Judy Loman, harp; Joaquin Valdepeñas, clarinet: Erika Raum and Annalee Patipatanakoon, violins; Steven Dann, viola; Amanda Forsyth, cello. Marquis (Mar 323). 2004

American Flute Masterpieces with pianist Lydia Wong. Marquis (Mar 413). 2010