Dr Susan West

Dr Susan West is an award winning educator, musician, composer and arranger with over forty years’ experience developing pre-tertiary music programs and post-graduate teacher-training.

 

Susan trained in music performance at the Melbourne University Conservatorium of Music and the Victorian College of the Arts and obtained a post-graduate degree in music education from the Kodaly Institute of Hungary. ​She was invited to the then Canberra School of Music in 1984 to help establish the Music Education Program. Recognising a need for different and more successful forms of music education, she continued her studies at Charles Sturt University and later with the Institute for Music and Health, New York. She transformed the Music Education Program into the Music Engagement Program, from which emerged a new philosophy for music making that embeds altruistic sharing at the centre of community and professional music making: ‘The Music Outreach Principle’. This approach has since affected the musical lives of tens of thousands of teachers, school children, secondary and tertiary students, musicians, seniors, and community members. Dr West’s philosophy and approaches are now being implemented across the globe, particularly in New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and New York State.

 

She has been recognised with a National Children’s Week Award, a National Women’s Day Award, a citation for Teaching Excellence from the Carrick Institute, a Community Outreach Award from the Music Council of Australia, an ANU Vice Chancellor’s Award for Community Engagement, and in 2016 was recognised as one of Australia’s 100 Women of Influence by the Australian Financial Review.

 

As well as continuing her practice and research in Canberra, Susan regularly collaborates with researchers and practitioners in New Zealand, trialling the application of outreach approaches in the South Island. She is currently completing a second PhD in Occupational Therapy at the University of Canberra exploring ways of fostering everyday singing for wellbeing.