Cellist Suzanne Wijsman, DMA MMus MA BMus BA (Hons), is Associate Professor in the Conservatorium of Music at the University of Western Australia. The recipient of a Fulbright Award for study in the UK and many awards, Suzanne has performed extensively in the USA, Australia and Europe.
Prior to moving to Australia, she was a member of the prize-winning Augustine String Quartet. She twice received fellowships to the Aspen Centre for Advanced Quartet Studies, as well as the Yale summer school at Norfolk. After moving to Australia, Suzanne performed with the acclaimed Stirling String Quartet, resident at WAAPA for six years, touring in Australia and internationally.
In the arena of historical performance, she recorded an acclaimed series of five CDs for ABC Classics, The Perfection of Music: Masterpieces of the French Baroque, hailed as “a landmark in the Australian performance of baroque music” (Sydney Morning Herald). In 2014 she premiered Peter Sculthorpe’s last work, Lament, as cello soloist at the University of Western Australia.
A highly respected pedagogue, cello students of Suzanne Wijsman have pursued high-profile post-graduate destinations and performance careers in Australia, Europe and North America. They have gained employment as performers in Australia and overseas with internationally renowned music ensembles or gone on to successful teaching careers.
Suzanne has a deep interest in researching health promotion for music students and how to embed musicians’ health education into music pedagogy. She led an interdisciplinary team in The Biomechanics of Cello Bowing (UWA Research Grant, 2004), investigating how cellists’ bowing movements relate to injury risks. Along with leading musicians’ health expert Bronwen Ackermann, she led the Musicians’ Health National Curriculum Initiative (MHNCI) to develop soundperformers.com, supported by an Australian Office of Learning and Teaching (OLT) Priority Projects grant. Their latest project is Training Sound Performers (2022-2024) supported by the Australia Council for the Arts, which is developing online musicians’ health resources for music teachers.
Suzanne Wijsman has also led or been a chief investigator for several international collaborative projects focused on health education for musicians: Musicians’ Performance Health Education: A Translational Approach (UWA Research Collaboration Award, 2017); Sound Performers Canada (led by Dr. Christine Guptill, University of Ottowa, SSHRC grant, Canada, 2018-2021). Suzanne was Academic Lead for Health Literacy and Health Education Mobility for Musicians: a global approach, which formed the Musicians Health Literacy Consortium in 2018 (Worldwide Universities Network Research Development Fund, 2018-2021). She is a Co-Investigator for Health promotion in post-secondary music education: An institutional ethnography (led by Dr. Christine Guptill, University of Ottowa, SSHRC grant, Canada, 2021-2025).
Qualifications
- Doctor of Musical Arts (advanced theory and analysis)
- MMus
- BMus
Specialisations
advanced students, musicians’ health, historical performance, chamber music