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Background:
From a midwestern girl playing the college bars and club circuits during the caldron of the sixties, segue to a young woman singing on the streets and playing in the folk clubs of Greenwich Village . . . go through the enviro-eco-consciousness of the ensemble music of the Paul Winter Consort for which Susan was the vocalist from 1978 to 1985 recording with eagles, whales, and wolves and as an Artist-in-Residence at the Cathedral St. John the Divine in NYC . . . at the same time developing and teaching innovative
workshops about the power of the human voice in song.
Then travel across the Pacific where she co-created and recorded an album of traditional Japanese songs in English and received the Japanese equivalent of a Grammy, and then two more releases for her Japanese audience and a
score of tours establishing her as a substantial performing artist in contemporary Japanese music and theater . . . A documentary film of her life for Asahi H-D TV was aired there in 1997. In 1996, she had a starring role in the celebrated Japanese musical Tanuki Goten. Along the way she has
performed and recorded in the UN General Assembly; at the Global Forum in Kyoto and the Hague, celebrating the formation of the world environmental organization the International Green Cross with Mikael and Raisa Gorbechev,
and appeared at numerous conferences and events through the years with world class presenters including: Robert Bly, Ellen Burstyn, Maya Angelou, and Al Gore. Susan had the honor of singing at both the Winter Olympic Games at a
medal awards ceremony and the Closing Ceremonies of the Paralympic Games in Nagano, Japan in Winter 1998.
There is no question of the healing power of a focused human gift of music, and Susan is one that has this with great clarity, understanding, beauty and wisdom. The mosaic of artists in her life include Brazilian percussionist
Nana Vasconcelos, singer/songwriter Lucinda Williams, Miles Davis keyboardist Robert Irving, folk legend Odetta and Broadway star Betty Buckley, New York Pops maestro Skitch Henderson, African master drummer Baba Olatunji, and guitarist Ralf Illenberger.
Biography:
Susan Osborn was born in 1950 in Owatonna Minnesota. She spent her early years growing up in a family of four children in Austin Minnesota, where her father was a physician for the Hormel Corporation.
Music was always a part of her life. She began singing at the age of 3 or 4 in the Sunday School choir and later began playing the organ, violin, guitar, and string bass. Listening to Broadway musicals and folksingers Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, Joan Baez, she began to form her love for song. She wrote her first song with the guitar at the age of 12. After a move to St. Louis Missouri in the mid 60's, rhythm and blues, soul and rock and roll took their place in the list of diverse influences on her music and life. Choral music played a big part in her education in the public schools and churches she attended. After two years of college at Iowa State University, she left to begin her professional career in music.
Since that beginning in 1970 in a small club band in Denver
Colorado, she has sung rock and roll, rhythm and blues,jazz,folk, country swing, bluegrass, gospel, original and cover in clubs and bars, in concert halls and churches, from NYC to Seattle, From Tokyo to Assisi Italy, big and small. A pivotal moment came in South Dakota in 1973, when she formed
her first vocal group called Garden with two other women, Marilyn Wetzler and Colleen Crangle. At their first rehearsal they co-wrote a song that was to become a classic, "Lay Down Your Burden". They were living in the small
university town of Vermillion SD, in 1975 when they met the jazz and world music innovator Paul Winter and became friends. Two years later, Paul invited Susan to come to his farm in Litchfield Connecticut and participate in the recording of his ground breaking album "Common Ground". "Lay Down
Your Burden" was recorded in Paul's barn and released on the "Common Ground" album the Spring of 1979. Susan began touring with the Paul Winter Consort that year and moved her home to the East Coast, New York City and
Connecticut. When not touring with the Consort, she wrote new music and played the clubs and on the streets of Greenwich Village. After a year, Susan moved briefly back to the mid-west to record her first solo album " You Gotta Believe" through the kindness of of generous benefactor. Recorded live, in a studio in Ames, Iowa,it was her first collection of all original songs.
In 1981, the Consort became Artists-in Residence at the Cathedral St. John the Divine in NYC and created and recorded the "Missa Gaia-A Mass for the Earth". The last project she did with the Consort was a live album in the General Assembly of the UN called "A Concert For the Earth". Also in 1981, Susan began developing and teaching a class exploring the power and joy of singing for all people called "The Seeds of Singing". Since that time she has facilitated thousands of people all over the world finding the beauty and communion of their voices in song. Her next solo releases were acapella, "Datura" and "Christmas Assisi".
Two more solo albums followed in 1984 and 1985. First "Signature", a studio album of a combination of original songs, standards and songs by friends, and then "Susan" orginals recorded in a small town hall near Litchfield.1985 brought the release of her last recording with the Consort,
recorded live in the UN " Concert for the Earth". Two years after her marriage in 1984 to the love of her life an artist and sculptor,they moved together to a small island near Seattle and began a new life in community. Rooting themselves in the natural beauty and the circle of friends they found there, both began to deepen their art and live out their commitment to the ideals formed in the cauldren of the 60's. Susan began traveling and teaching full time learning from the courageous
participants in her classes about the power of presence.
In 1989, Susan was invited to teach in Japan for the first time and the seeds of a long-term and deep connection with that culture were planted. The next year while attending a gathering in newly opened Berlin, she met and played with the guitarist Ralf Illenberger. They discovered that they had a rare gift for fluid and soaring improvisation together. Later that summer they recorded spontaneous improvisations in Ralf's home in Germany and later released them as the CD "Entrance". In 1994 she released another duet collaboration " Journey, Live", this time of a live concert in the Cathedral St. John the Divine with Phil Marcowitz, a brilliant pianist.
In 1991, Susan returned to Japan, to teach once again and to record. Asked by a gifted young Japanese Producer, Masato Ushijima, to sing Japanese folk songs in English, they produced the Recordo Taisho winning " Wabi". Since then Susan has traveled to Japan 19 times to do concerts and teach and record. "Wabi" was followed by "Sabi", an album of classic Western melodies, and then in 1996 "The Pearl", again traditional Japanese melodies with English lyrics by Susan and her husband David. Also, in 1996, Susan was asked by the talented director and choreographer Miamoto Amon to take a roll in his production of the musical
Tanuki Goten in Tokyo and sang in 43 sold-out performances. She also travelled to the Findhorn Foundation in Scotland to participate in a world conference on Song with people from all over the world. And finally, she produced and released her newest recording with Brian Becvar on keyboard " All Through the Night. . . A Christmas Lullaby" in time for a series of 9 Christmas concerts to end the year.
Currently, she is working on a new album of original songs written in the last two years for release in the Fall of 1997, and a new series of classes called " Silence and Song".
Taken from http://www.rockisland.com/~songhaus/
With thanks to David Bruce.
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