Susan Evans
Susan Evans was born in Wales, where she began piano studies at the age of 5, and as a teenager performed for several years as a cellist in the National Youth Orchestra of Wales. After preparing for her Licentiate of the Royal Schools of Music in piano performance at the age of 15, she went on to study piano, cello and composition with Nigel Amherst, Michael Evans and Imogen Holst at Dartington College of Arts in Devon.
After a change of career path, Susan was accepted for studies at the prestigious Royal College of Art in London, graduating with a Master of Arts degree in Film and Television Production. She went on to work with award-winning animation director Paul Vester, with the esteemed film director Mike Leigh, as film editor at the BBC and on the Led Zeppelin’s seminal concert film, “The Song Remains the Same”
After living and working as a journalist in Tokyo for several years, she immigrated with her young family to Canada. In 2000 she obtained her Bachelor of Music degree at the University of British Columbia, where she studied piano with Robert Rogers, Terry Dawson and Rena Sharon, harpsichord with Doreen Oke and composition with Stephen Chatman and Keith Hamel. Her compositions have been performed by Elektra Women’s Choir as part of the Vancouver Festival of Music, and at various venues in the Lower Mainland and in Switzerland.
In 2024, Susan returned to the University of British Columbia to begin studying for a Master of Arts (emphasis Music Theory), but after one year, re-directed her studies to the Faculty of Music at the University of Cambridge to pursue a Master of Philosophy (Musicology) degree. Her dissertation discusses the influence of the French tradition of liturgical improvisation on the theoretic structure and compositional praxis of the composer Olivier Messiaen.
She has performed as a pianist in collaboration with lyric coloratura soprano Lambroula Pappas, with the UBC Contemporary Music Ensemble, and with violinists Masako Matsumoto and Mary Sokol Brown. Susan has been invited to adjudicate music festivals in Vancouver, Cranbrook, Squamish, Whistler and Burnaby.
Her musical interests are broad, and her students who have continued to higher music education degrees at schools such as the University of British Columbia, the City University of New York, Capilano University, and the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester, New York are now employed in a variety of roles: film music composition, classical piano performance and teaching, and jazz performance and composition for the Walt Disney Company in Los Angeles.
Susan is a member of the B.C. Registered Music Teachers’ Association and until recently the Canadian Music Festival Adjudicators’ Association. She is Provincial Chair of the British Columbia Student Composer Competition, which advances winning students to national levels of competition. She is certified by the Royal Conservatory of Music as an Advanced Specialist teacher of piano, and as an Advanced Specialist teacher of music theory.
Supported by her wealth of experience and a constant drive for learning, Susan brings warmth and humour to her lessons, and care and empathy to her relationship with her students, many of whom remain in contact with her long after they leave her studio. Susan loves teaching, and has no plans to retire from the activity that has given her the most pleasure for so many years. She often says that she would rather be teaching piano to the next generation than doing anything else, so why would she want to stop?