Susan T. Nelson, M.M. Music Technology & Composition, Summa cum Laude, University of Valley Forge, PA (2014). B.A. Music Theory & Composition, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ (1979). Susan has been published since 1991 and has numerous compositions in print with 22 major publishers. Her works have been featured at many festivals such as the “Ring in Praise Seminars” in Scotland, Bay View Week of Handbells, Hong Kong Handbell Festival, and Distinctly Bronze. Commissions include writing for prestigious groups such as the Back Bay Ringers, Boston, MA, Oklahoma City Handbell Ensemble, and Velocity Handbell Ensemble, Oakland, CA. Susan’s arrangement of the “Brian Boru March” was used for a TV commercial in Estonia in 2010. Her original composition “A Trumpet Voluntary” was the processional for the opening ceremonies for the 99th Estonian Independence Day celebrations in 2017. She is Campanelli Handbell Ensemble’s personal composer. Susan’s compositions have been performed, recorded, and broadcast on radio or TV in six of the seven continents.
Ms. Nelson was invited to Estonia, October 2013 by conductor Inna Lai, to attend an “author’s concert” consisting entirely of her works. This “Sue’s Blues” concert served as her graduate composition recital for the University of Valley Forge, supported by a nearly 200 page thesis entitled “A Ringing Evolution: An International Graduate Composition Recital.” This ongoing collaboration with Ms. Lai led to Campanelli’s 2017 USA “Sue’s Blues Too” tour, which Susan produced and managed, and the 2019 “Sue’s Blues 3” concert in Tallinn, Estonia. Ms. Nelson and Ms. Lai are the subjects of two commercial European documentary music films, produced by Kopli Kinokompanii: “Unes või ilmsi” (2014), and “Unistus” (2018). The films premiered at the Artis Cinema theatre in Tallinn, and were broadcast thereafter on TV.
Honors include the “Reverbeebi Project” competition winner, resulting in two of her 21st Century original compositions on display in the Estonian Museum of Theatre and Music (2016), eight ASCAP Plus awards, and the W.D. McKeehan award from the Handbell Musicians of America (1999). She has studied in master class with Donald Allured, Cynthia Dobrinski, and WCC Saturday seminars with Kathleen Ebling Shaw and Katsumi Kodama. She studied composition with Scott Watson, Floyd Richmond and William DeSanto at the University of Valley Forge; and Daniel Goode and Philip Corner at Rutgers. Constantly pushing the envelope, she is always looking for creative ways to enhance handbell literature. Susan is known internationally for her innovative original compositions and ability to write in a wide variety of styles.
She has taught composition, orchestration, score study, music theory, and various handbell technique classes at workshops, festival conferences, and has served as Historian on the Area 2 Executive Board. She holds a New Jersey K-12 Standard music teacher certificate. Susan has worked with children of all ages for 30+ years and is the author of “KidzRing™” an innovative series of books designed for very young ringers. She became an HRGB author in 2022, when her article was published in “Reverberations,” the National Journal of the Handbell Ringers of Great Britain. She is the curator of the Virtual Handbell Museum and is frequently called upon to identify and appraise antique ringing instruments.
A “Director of Music” since 1974, Ms. Nelson recently retired from church work and her position at Talbott Library, Westminster Choir College, to pursue composing full-time. She has played piano, organ, harpsichord, handbells, recorder, crumhorn, guitar and flute professionally for over 40 years.
www.susantnelson.com
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