Susan Deaver

Flutist Susan Deaver received her DMA, MM, and BM in flute performance from Manhattan School of Music. Her principal teachers were Julius Baker, Ransom Wilson, Thomas Nyfenger, and Harold Bennett. She was an assistant to Julius Baker in his flute master classes in 1984 and received fellowships to Tanglewood and the Bach Aria Festival. As principal flutist of the Washington Chamber Symphony, she performed numerous times as soloist at the Kennedy Center and was a featured soloist on three European tours. Hailed by The Washington Post for “superb playing” and The New Yorker for “atmospheric virtuosity,” Susan Deaver has been active as a freelance musician in New York, performing as soloist, chamber musician, orchestral flutist, and on Broadway. She has performed with Music Viva, Long Island Philharmonic, Queens Symphony, Brooklyn Philharmonic, Philharmonic Virtuosi, New York Scandia Symphony, and in Phantom of the Opera.

An avid chamber musician, Susan Deaver is the co-founder and current festival director of the Pierrot Chamber Music Festival and a member of The Pierrot Consort, the faculty ensemble-in-residence. She was a member of the Manhattan Woodwind Quintet, which won the Artists International Competition and toured Switzerland four times. She recorded with the Concordia Trio and for New World, CRI, and Arabesque. Also active as a conductor, she is music director and conductor of the North Shore Symphony Orchestra and of the University Orchestra at Stony Brook University. She currently serves as principal guest conductor of the Long Island Youth Orchestra and has guest conducted in the United States, Europe, and Korea. During the winter and spring of 2006, she was the conducting teacher of actor Freddie Highmore for the Warner Brothers movie August Rush. She is on the flute and chamber music Precollege faculty at Manhattan School of Music and the music faculties of Stony Brook University and LIU Post.

Manhattan School of Music Precollege faculty since 1989.