Susan E. Deaver, Music Director & Conductor

Susan Deaver

As North Shore Symphony Orchestra’s Music Director and Conductor, Susan Deaver has successfully established NSSO as one of Long Island’s foremost community orchestras. In addition to conducting weekly rehearsals and a series of concerts with NSSO, she is credited with innovative programming, and has made great strides in organizing and securing the future of NSSO. This includes the orchestra’s residency at Plainview Old Bethpage JFK High School and the important establishment of the Friends of NSSO, which now is a vital part of the orchestra’s successful organization. In additional, she established NSSO’s Young Artist Award Competition, and most recently founded the orchestra’s Artist-in-Residence Program. A champion of new music, she has conducted premiers of orchestral works written for the North Shore Symphony Orchestra.

She made her conducting debut at Carnegie Hall with the Long Island Youth Orchestra in March 2007, and is a frequent conductor at both Tilles Center and Staller Center. Guest conducting engagements include the Island Chamber Symphony, the Bronx Opera Chamber Orchestra, the Gemini Orchestra, the C.W. Post Percussion Ensemble, The Seoul Symphony of New York, two premieres of guitar concertos at the Long Island Guitar Festival, and at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music. Ms. Deaver was selected to participate in Tanglewood’s Conducting Seminar Classes and was also selected to participate in the conducting seminars of the American Symphony Orchestral League, the Conductor’s Guild and at the Manhattan School of Music with Kurt Masur, Julius Rudel and Sixten Ehrling. She has conducted in Scotland, England, Spain and Germany where in 2006 Ms. Deaver was selected to conduct at the International Master Class in Orchestral Conducting sponsored by the Philharmonisches Kammerorchester Berlin. In Korea she has guest conducted the Pusan Festival Orchestra and the Masan City Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Deaver was the conducting instructor for actor Freddie Highmore for Warner Brothers’ new movie August Rush which was released in late November 2007.

Susan Deaver is on the Music Faculty of Stony Brook University, C. W. Post Campus/Long Island University and the Manhattan School of Music's Precollege Division as both flutist and conductor. She is also the Co-Founder & Festival Director of the C. W. Post Chamber Music Festival. Her Bachelor's and Master's degrees are from the Manhattan School of Music where she received her Doctorate in Musical Arts.