Faculty and staff

Dr. Susan W. Kane, soprano and professor of voice and opera, has served as the Chair of the Vocal Arts Area at California State University, Los Angeles for the past seven years. An active performer, Kane will release her first solo CD recording or art songs and arias in March of 2009 entitled A Moment of Joy. She will perform the role of Micaëla in La tragédie de Carmen in May of 2009. A graduate of The University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Dr. Kane studied under soprano and vocal pedagogue, Barbara Honn. In demand for vocal master classes, Dr. Kane has been an invited master teacher at the New Israeli Opera Young Artist Program in Tel Aviv and an invited lecturer for the Los Angeles Opera’s Education and Community Programs on the topic of “Training the Next Generation of Opera Singers.” Her paper on “Bridging the Gap between the University and the Stage has just been accepted for the International Congress of Voice Teachers in Paris, France in July of 2009.

Dr. Kane’s students are performing throughout the country and abroad. Kane’s students can be heard in Italy, England, and Israel as well as locally at Sacramento Opera, Celestial Opera, Intimate Opera, Bi-lingual Foundation for the Arts, and Los Angeles Opera Education and Community Programs. They have won many competitions both on regional and national levels. Dr. Kane’s students have been winners in Long Beach Mozart Festival, Hollywood Reading Club, National Association of Teachers of Singing Collegiate Auditions and Young Artist Competitions as well as the Los Angeles Opera Buffs. Dr. Kane’s crystal clear soprano voice has captured audiences from coast to coast. Besides Micaëla, Dr. Kane’s opera roles include Susanna in the MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, Eurydice in ORPHEUS AND THE UNDERWORLD, Alma Way in Pasatieri’s THE VILLAGE SINGER, Papagena in THE MAGIC FLUTE, Sophie in WERTHER, Mabel in PIRATES OF PENZANCE, Silverpeal in THE IMPRESARIO, Sweet Rose Maybud in RUDDIGORE, and Elsie Maynard in YOEMAN OF THE GUARD. Susan has performed with many regional companies such as Lyric Opera Cleveland, Carnegie Opera Theatre in Kentucky, and Chicago Gilbert and Sullivan Company. She was fortunate to perform “Quando m’en vo soletta” from Puccini’s La Boheme with the California Philharmonic in December of 2007. Reviews from that performance highlight her “generosity of spirit and charm” as well as her “excellent performance.” Vocal chamber music and art song suit Dr. Kane’s lyrical voice and she continues to perform both. She performed Ravel’s Trois Poèmes de Stephan Mallarmé and Stravinsky’s Three Japanese Poems with chamber orchestra as well as songs by Schubert and Messiaen in the highly acclaimed Jacaranda Chamber Series in Santa Monica that have received great reviews in the Los Angeles Times. Dr. Kane has been an invited recitalist from coast to coast. As a champion of both new music and music by women composers and Dr. Kane has been fortunate to have several pieces written for her, the most recent being Songs from the Long History of Happiness by Sara Carina Graef that have been performed from Miami, Florida to Los Angeles, California.

Kane’s interest in educational theorist’s Howard Gardner’s work on multiple intelligences has led her to a unique research area exploring how singers learn best. She was invited to lecture on the topic at the Huntington Library Power Visions Lecture Series in February of 2007 and presented a poster paper on the topic at the National Association of Teachers of Singing national convention in Minneapolis. At Cal State Los Angeles, Kane has championed the operatic genre of zarzuela. With Kane as the point person, Cal State LA has attracted a group of experts in the field and mounted many productions of zarzuelas. Kane has developed an undergraduate and graduate performance curriculum at Cal State LA, perfectly positioned in the center of Los Angeles, to make it a solid, up-and-coming opera-training program.

Susan Kane holds the Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music degrees in Vocal Pedagogy and Performance from The University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and the Bachelor of Music in Music Education and Vocal Performance from the University of Iowa.