School of Music

Staff profiles

Assoc/Prof Suzanne Wijsman

Associate Professor
Academic Staff (Music)

Contact details

Address: Academic Staff (Music)
The University of Western Australia (M413)
35 Stirling Highway
CRAWLEY WA 6009
Australia
Phone: 6488 2061
Email: suzanne.wijsman@uwa.edu.au

Qualifications

BMus Oberlin Conserv. of Mus., BA Oberlin Coll., MA Mich., MusM DMA Roch.

Biography

Cellist Suzanne Wijsman was born in the USA and received her formal musical education at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, International Cello Centre and the Eastman School of Music. Her cello teachers included Paul Katz, Jane Cowan, Steven Doane and Richard Kapuscinski. She also received a BA with Highest Honors in Religion from Oberlin College, and an MA in Near Eastern Studies from the University of Michigan, where she was the recipient of Rackham and Cameron Fellowships.
The recipient of a Fulbright Award for study in the UK, Suzanne has performed extensively in the USA, Australia and Europe, in chamber music or as recitalist. In the USA she was a member of the Augustine String Quartet from 1985-1989, which won prizes in the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and the Cleveland Quartet Competition, was a semi-finalist at the 1989 Banff International String Quartet Competition, and twice received fellowships to the Aspen Centre for Advanced Quartet Studies, as well as the Yale summer school at Norfolk. Her chamber music studies were with members of the Cleveland, Tokyo and Juilliard Quartets. From 1990-96, Suzanne played with the acclaimed Stirling String Quartet, which toured several times in Australia for Musica Viva, internationally to Italy and South Korea, and presented frequent concerts and ABC radio broadcasts. She also served as a lecturer as the Western Australian Conservatorium of Music, and was invited to serve as a visiting faculty member at the Eastman School of Music in 1992.
Since joining the staff of the School of Music in 1997, Suzanne performed with many of Western Australia’s premier early music specialist ensembles, as well as in numerous local chamber music concerts. She was a chief investigator in a research project on French baroque music funded by the Australian Research Council, recording and researching French baroque chamber music included on a recent series of 5 CDs, The Perfection of Music: Masterpieces of the French Baroque in collaboration with ABC Classics, released 2007-2009 and reissued as a boxed set in 2013.
Students of Suzanne Wijsman have pursued further studies in Australia, Europe and North America as some of the world's most prestigious music schools and have gained employment as performers in Australia and overseas including internationally renowned early music ensembles, such as the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, the Academy of Ancient Music and the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra. Many graduates from her class have also gone on to successful teaching careers.
Along with Dr. Bronwen Ackermann of the University of Sydney, Suzanne is leader of a major national project 'A Musicians' Health Curriculum Initiative' focused on improving performance health education in Australian tertiary music schools, funded in 2009 by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC, now the Australian Government Office of Learning and Teaching, OLT). The online learning resource soundperformers.com is the principal product of the MHNCI project.
Suzanne is engaged in ongoing resarch on the iconography and codicology of the Oppenheimer Siddur, a little-known and richly illuminated 15th-century Hebrew manuscript in Oxford's Bodleian Library with more illustrations of musicians than any other Hebrew illuminated manuscript from the Middle Ages. She spent part of 2009 in residence at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies as a visiting scholar, where she gave two invited lectures. In 2009-2010 she was a contributor to the first major exhibition of Hebrew manuscripts from the collection of the Bodleian Library, Crossing Borders, which was also exhibited at the Jewish Museum of New York in 2012.
She has presented papers at national and international conferences such as the Congress of the International Committee on the History of Art (2012), Australian Association of Jewish Studies (2010), Musicological Society of Australia (2011), Australian Society for Performing Arts Healthcare (2008, 2010), ANZAMEMS (2008), the Perth Medieval and Renaissance Group annual conference (2005), and the Performing Arts Medicine Association (North America) annual symposia (2007, 2008, 2010).

Key research

The Oppenheimer Siddur-Oxford Bodleian MS Opp. 776: iconography (including musical illustrations), codicology, artistic production

Publications

Book Chapters:
Wijsman, Suzanne “Silent Sounds: the programmatic function and communicative power of musical iconography in a 15th-century Jewish prayer book” in Dianne J. Reilly and Susan Boynton, eds. Resounding Images: New Perspectives on Art, Music and Sound in the Long Middle Ages (Studies in Visual Cultures of the Middle Ages, Turnhout, forthcoming, 2014)

Wijsman, Suzanne “Material Object and Immaterial Imagination: Expressions of ‘Self’ and ‘Other’ in a Fifteenth-Century Hebrew Illuminated Prayer Book” in G. Ulrich Großmann, Petra Krutisch eds., The Challenge of the Object / Die Herausforderung des Objekts, Congress of the International Committee on the History of Art 2012 Proceedings, T. 1-3. Nuremberg (2013)

Wijsman, Suzanne “The Oppenheimer Siddur: Artist and Scribe in a Fifteenth-Century Hebrew Prayer Book” in Crossing Borders: Hebrew Manuscripts as the Meeting-Place of Cultures, Piet van Boxel and Sabine Arndt, eds. (Oxford: The Bodleian Library, 2009), 69-84

Peer-Reviewed Articles:
Wijsman, S and Ackermann, B: “A Needs-Based Tertiary Music Students Health Survey in Australia” (manuscript in train for submission in late 2012)

Wijsman, S and Ackermann, B: “Developing A National Musicians’ Health Education Program for Australia” (manuscript in train for submission in late 2012)

Anita Fuhrmann, Suzanne Wijsman, Philip Weinstein, Darryl Poulsen, “Asthma among musicians in Australia: is there a difference between wind/ brass and non-wind/ brass players?” Medical Problems of Performing Artists vol. 24, No. 4 (2009), 170-74

Book Review:
Sarit Shalev-Eyni, Jews among Christians: Hebrew Book Illumination from Lake Constance (Turnhout: Harvey Miller/Brepols, 2010), Parergon 28/2 (forthcoming, 2012)

Encyclopaedia Entries:
Wijsman, Suzanne, “Violoncello, II” (18th-19th centuries), The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell (Macmillan, 2001), vol. 26, 750-65; and Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy: http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com

Wijsman, Suzanne, “Fingering, II (3)” (Violoncello), The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell (Macmillan, 2001), vol. 8, 848-51; and Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy: http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com

Revision of Minor Encyclopaedia Entries:
Wessely, Othmar/Wijsman, Suzanne, “Kraft”, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell (Macmillan, 2001) and Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy: http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com

Johnson, David /Wijsman, Suzanne, “Gunn, John”, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell (Macmillan, 2001) and Grove Music Online ed. L. Macyhttp://www.oxfordmusiconline.com

Pohl, C.F./Wijsman, Suzanne, “Lincke, Joseph”, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell (Macmillan, 2001) and Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy: http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com

Conference Papers and Research Presentations:
Paper presented: 33rd Congress of the Comité Internationale de l’Histoire de l’Art, Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg, Germany, “Material Object and Immaterial Imagination: Expressions of ‘Self’ and ‘Other’ in a Fifteenth-Century Hebrew Illuminated Prayer Book” (16 July, 2012)

Musicological Society of Australia Annual Conference, University of Western Australia, “Silent Sounds: the programmatic function and communicative power of musical iconography in a 15th-century Jewish prayer book” (2 December, 2011)

Global Health and the Humanities Symposium, UWA: “Sound Performers: Designing a National Musicians’ Health Curriculum for Australia” (21 march, 2011)

Performing Arts Medicine Association Annual Symposium, Snowmass, Colorado, USA: “Designing a National Musicians’ Health Curriculum for Australia” (31 July 2010)

Oxford University, Bodleian Library: Contributor, Crossing Borders Exhibition of Hebrew manuscripts at the Bodleian Library (8 December, 2009-1 May, 2010) and visiting speaker: “The Oppenheimer Siddur: Artist and Scribe in a Fifteenth-Century Illuminated Hebrew Prayer Book” (28 April, 2010)

Australian Association of Jewish Studies Annual Conference, University of Sydney: “In the Eye of the Beholder: Images of ‘Self’ and ‘Other’ in a 15th-Century User-Produced Hebrew Prayer Book” (14 February, 2010)

Monash University, Melbourne, Medieval and Renaissance Group seminar: “Artist and Scribe in a Fifteenth-Century Illuminated Hebrew Prayer Book: Introducing the Oppenheimer Siddur” (11 September, 2009)

Oxford University, Hebrew and Jewish Studies Unit, Hebrew Codicology Seminar invited lecture: “Body and Soul: Text and Image in Bodleian MS Opp. 776 A 15th-Century Hebrew Prayer Book” (10 June, 2009)

Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Oxford University, David Patterson Series public lecture: “Wild Men, Musicians and Others: the Art and Iconography of Bodleian MS Opp. 776, a 15th-century Hebrew Prayer Book” (27 May, 2009)

Australia and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies annual conference, University of Tasmania: “Wild Men in Hebrew Manuscript Art of the Late Middle Ages” (4 December, 2008)

Australian Society for Performing Arts Healthcare Annual Conference, Melbourne: “Feldenkrais-Based Movement Training for Musicians” (with Sarah Wiin) (25 October, 2008)

Performing Arts Medicine Association Annual Symposium, Aspen, USA, “Feldenkrais and Musicians-Reflections from a physiotherapy practice” and “Feldenkrais-Working with Musicians” workshop (with Sarah Wiin) (19-20 June, 2008)

Perth Medieval and Renaissance Group Annual Symposium “Wild men in Hebrew manuscript art of the late Middle Ages: appropriation and reinterpretation of a mythological figure” (May, 2008)

Performing Arts Medicine Association Annual Symposium, Aspen, USA, “The Biomechanics of Cello Bowing: Initial Results” (21 June, 2007)

Perth Medieval and Renaissance Group "Music and musicians in Hebrew illuminated manuscripts from the 13th-15th centuries" (9 November, 2005)

Musicological Society of Australia, National Conference, University of Melbourne: “Marschaliks: Evidence of Early Jewish Fiddlers in Central Europe” (April, 2001)

Music, Mind and Medicine, One-day conference, University of Western Australia: “The Biomechanics of Cello Bowing” (5 April, 2006)

International Musicological Society, Symposium The Past in the Present, Budapest, Hungary: “The Polnische Geige: the Early History and Development of the Violin Family in Poland” (28 August, 2000)

Musicological Society of Australia, National Conference, University of Western Australia: "The Musical Implications of Early Cello Fingering Practice for the Modern Performer" (June, 1999)

Recordings:
The Perfection of Music: Masterpieces of the French Baroque (5-disc series on ABC Classics, distributed internationally by Universal Music)
Boxed set to be released in early 2013 ABC Classics 4810122
Individual Discs and initial release date:
French Baroque Cantatas Ensemble Battistin with Fiona Campbell and Taryn Fiebig (2007)
The Concert Français Ensemble Battistin with Sara Macliver and Taryn Fiebig (2007)
The Concert Spirituel Ensemble Battistin with Sara Macliver (2007)
The Palais-Royal Ensemble Battistin with Sara Macliver (2008)
The Musicians’ Table Ensemble Battistin (2009)

Excerpts from reviews of this series:
“The set is a landmark in the Australian performance of baroque music. Ensemble Battistin solve the difficulties of this deceptively simple music with elegance and sophistication, capturing the music's subtle rhythmic freedom without mannerism and incorporating French ornamentation with naturalness and beauty.” Sydney Morning Herald (20 June, 2008) http://www.smh.com.au/news/cd-reviews/sara-macliver-ensemble-battistin/2008/06/20/1213770908483.html)

“The Ensemble Battistin is very fine and impresses with its impeccable technique and admirable sense of style. These are lively and engaging performances, characterised by a strongly gestural style of playing, in which the rhythms are well exposed and the expression of the slow movements is fully explored. It is hardly possible to argue more strongly in favour of this repertoire than the Ensemble Battistin does on this disc.” (Music Web International, http://www.musicwebinternational.com/classrev/2009/sept09/Musicians_table_4766996)

“The ensemble also present a violin duo by Louis-Gabriel Guillemain (1705–70) and two works by Joseph Bodin de Boismortier (1689–1755) from his op.50: the fourth cello sonata (played beauti¬fully on two cellos, the second realizing the continuo for the first) and the glorious final trio sonata featuring the cello in an obbligato role, partnering the violin. This is a charming CD which succeeds in shedding light on some of the little-known gems of the French Baroque repertory… I find the Brandywine performance more cloying and less subtle than the cellos of the Ensemble Battistin, whose sumptuously resonant and transparent approach really lets the music dance….” Early Music 38/3 (August, 2010), 470

Roles, responsibilities and expertise

Associate Professor, School of Music

Funding received

Australian Research Council Small Grant (2000)

Australian Research Council Linkage Grant: The French Baroque Music Project (2003-2006)

UWA Research Grant: The Biomechanics of Cello Bowing (2004)

Australian Learning and Teaching Council Priority Projects Grant, with Dr. Bronwen Ackermann, University of Sydney (2009-2011)

Industrial relevance

Occupational Health and Safety for musicians

Languages

French, Hebrew, Russian

Memberships

Australian Soceity for Performing Arts Healthcare (Executive Committee), Performing Arts Medicine Association (North America), Australian Strings Association, Chamber Music America, Australian Association of Jewish Studies, ANZAMEMS

Previous positions