What can one say about world-renowned harpist Susann McDonald, Artistic Director of the World Harp Congress since its inception, Founder and Music Director of the USA International Harp Competition and Honorary President of the Association Internationale des Harpistes et Amis de la Harpe? Press reviews describe her accurately as “an exquisite artist,” “superb musicianship,” “one of the greatest living harpists,” “revelation of the art of harp playing . . . sublime, unforgettable depth of communication.” Yet there remain some matters to consider if we are to appreciate the achievement of this musician. I would like to offer a tribute to the aspect of Susann McDonald’s professional career that I have most directly experienced—her teaching.

During more than forty years of harp teaching, Susann McDonald has taught at the University of Arizona, California State University and the University of Southern California. She also served as head of the Harp Department at the Juilliard School for ten years. In 1981, she was appointed Chair of the Harp Department at Indiana University, where she has created the largest harp department in the world. In 1989, she was awarded the title of Distinguished Professor of Music at Indiana University.

Susann McDonald’s teaching is distinguished in every respect. Her knowledge of harp literature covers all areas of the harp repertoire, including solo, chamber and orchestra compositions, and she has it all stored in her fingers for recall at any moment. Her teaching of these pieces is always current in style, and she continually adds new harp compositions to her teaching repertoire. Moreover, her thorough knowledge of the instrument itself, crucial both for virtuosic playing and effective teaching, enhances her knowledge of harp literature. For students as well as for other harp instructors, her mastery of her subject make Susann McDonald’s teaching an inexhaustible source of knowledge and inspiration.

The foundation of Susann McDonald’s pedagogical method comes from the heritage of Henriette Renié, the great French harpist, who was her mentor. By giving priority to musical aspects rather than to simple technical repetition, Susann McDonald helps the student discover the desired musical effect, then suggests appropriate technical solutions. With the shades of every color of musical feeling on her palette, she evokes something unique from every piece of music and from each student as well.

Susann McDonald’s personal relationship to her students obviously varies, as each of them is a different individual. Her association with all students, however, is founded in a dedication to the harp. Her lessons contain encouragement, a warm sense of humor and faith in good work. Inga-Lisa Jansen of Switzerland describes these lessons: “How we laughed and labored unceasingly! Each piece and passage one after the other without a break, hours on end, driven by her happy voice that sang and above all counted, counted, counted.” Susann McDonald’s guidance encourages students to envision specific goals, to search for higher qualities in music, in musicianship and in one’s character. Reading from Inga-Lisa Jansen’s comments: “Her talent for pedagogy, her greatest strength, is the development of students. She awakens their abilities and strengths and helps with their development. Everyone who comes under her wing accomplishes much more than he or she could have imagined.”

Susann McDonald’s teaching is not confined to formal lessons. She believes that lessons should inspire students to work even harder to realize aspirations held by both student and teacher. The ultimate intent of her teaching is to help her students shape their own careers, to set and achieve goals through consistent work and an awareness of the great and evolving traditions that have been passed on to them. More specifically, her teaching continues in comments regarding such matters as students’ harp playing, stage presence, and the possible problems caused by stress. Aware that performing on stage brings its own pressures, she prepares students mentally and musically for the transitions from secure practice room to public stage. Each public performance, she believes, needs to be carefully prepared through private performances to a safe audience (or perhaps to no audience) before it is given on stage. With great empathy, she guides her students with detailed instructions based on her concertizing experience. Her students are consistently among the top prize winners in national and international harp competitions. Some now hold prestigious positions with such organizations as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera, the Berlin Philharmonic, and the Orchestre Nationale de France. Others have become major teachers and concert artists around the world. In their later careers, many of these harpists return to Susann McDonald for further advice regarding concert repertoire, recordings or teaching. Her number of students thus increases every year as she works simultaneously with former and present harp students.

Susann McDonald is also known internationally through her work as a judge on harp competitions and through her own master classes that she conducts in North and South America, in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Although she teaches students on every level in these classes, she has the same general approach for beginners as for young professionals. In each case she uses positive reinforcement to build the confidence that is essential for an artist to grow. She constantly develops a greater depth of musical intensity in her students’ harp playing, always with a dual respect for the student and for the music. As Isabel Moretón Achsel of Germany experienced: “One of her greatest assets as pedagogue is the distinguished analysis of the playing and the tone. Should she be uncertain how to explain how the passage should go, she demonstrates it, and immediately the student knows how the piece should sound.” Another hallmark of her teaching is a delicate sense of timing that allows her to give a student the precise instruction needed, so that one never leaves a lesson feeling empty or overwhelmed. Thus, sensitivity and wisdom are the crucial elements that define her instruction.

To help fill the need for a greater harp repertoire for beginners, Susann McDonald wrote the series, Graded Recital Pieces for the Harp. Always seeking new repertoire and new ways of interpretation, she has published Christmas Music for the Harp, Music for Worship and Weddings, Spanish Music for the Harp, and Sacred Favorites. She has also edited many classical harp compositions, among them Six Harp Sonatas by Franz Anton Rosetti. Perhaps the most special composition among her own pieces is Haiku for the Harp. This collection, containing a dozen short pieces based on Japanese poems, invents a variety of new sound effects for the harp and supplies a vocabulary for avant-garde music, such as improvisations, changing meter, or the use of additional tools (like a brush) in performance. These are excellent studies for all levels of harp players as well as successful performance pieces. The two volumes of Susann McDonald’s booklet, The Private Lesson, contain the most authentic references with respect to Thoughts for the Student and Thoughts for the Teacher.

After more than forty years of vibrant performing and a continually increasing list of students, it can truly be said that Susann McDonald has been raising the next generation of harpists, who come to her to experience the inspiration that she exemplifies and the love for the harp that she shares. As she is a great artist in harp playing, so she endures in the lives of her students as a great artist in teaching.




Copyright 1998, Harpa
Printed originally in the Spring issue of Harpa.
Used by permission.