Conrad Stephen Susa (April 26, 1935 – November 21, 2013) was an American composer, particularly known for his operas. His 1973 chamber opera, Transformations, set to texts from the poems of Anne Sexton, is one of the most frequently performed operas by an American composer and was one of the featured operas of the 2006 Wexford Opera Festival. His other compositions include choral works and incidental music for various plays. His music is published by the E.C. Schirmer Music Company.Susa was born in Springdale, Pennsylvania and educated at Carnegie Institute of Technology and the Juilliard School, where his teachers included William Bergsma, Vincent Persichetti and, by his own claim, P. D. Q. Bach, a character created by American composer Peter Schickele. In 1988 he joined the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music where he served as Chair of the Composition Department.
[on composing music for the theater] I get to bring on a king or two, I get to provide music for his coronation, send a lot of troops into battles, create the weather. I've sunk a few ships, I've helped precipitate some rebellions. If I wrote music just to express things in my own life, I wouldn't have that range. [on composing music for the theater]
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Suddenly, one day it struck me with considerable force that I was going in the wrong direction. I decided that I wasn't ever destined to have a reasonable life anyway, so I made a desperate lunge for music. The fact that I finally became an opera composer shows how little common sense I really possess.
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Fact
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He was awarded the 1986 Drama Logue Award for Outstanding Original Music for "Romance Language" at the Mark Taper Forum Theatre in Los Angeles, California.
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He studied music at the Carnegie Institute of Technology and the Juilliard School.
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In 2006, he came to Ireland and attended the Wexford Opera Festival.
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American composer, known for his operas.
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He was the chair of the composition department at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
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