Suzanne Hassler

Coordinator of Alumni Relations and Development

BFA, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (magna cum laude); MA (dramatic history and criticism, with an emphasis in opera as theater - summa cum laude), University of Texas at Austin. Principal teachers include Oscar Brockett, Martha Deatherage, and David Garvey.

Suzanne joined the UIUC School of Music as Coordinator for Alumni Relations and Development in August 2005, having served previously as the communications director and development liaison for The University of Texas. While at UT she completed an historical recording project featuring David Garvey, Leontyne Price’s long-time artistic partner, and four American opera singers titled “The Horse I Ride Has Wings,” later accepted into the Library of Congress. She was a member of the UT College of Fine Arts External Relations and Development Committee, the City of Austin’s annual B. Iden Payne Theater Industry Awards committee, and was invited to join the executive committee of the city-wide 2006 Shostakovich Festival. Suzanne was recognized by UT with an Outstanding Service Award in 1998 and named the National Critics Association’s Southwest Regional winner in 1991.

She has worked on repeat occasions with international stage director Robert Wilson, most memorably as Saint Theresa I in Virgil Thomson’s Four Saints in Three Acts, and has coordinated many regional, national, and international events including an interdisciplinary symposium, “From Text to Performance: Law and Other Performing Arts,” directed by Sanford Levinson, with guest artists and speakers Jonathan Miller, Richard Taruskin, Lewis Lockwood, Joshua Rifkin, Anthony Tommasini, Malcolm Bilson, and Russell Sherman. She has worked professionally with the Alley Theater in Houston, American Repertory Theater at Harvard, Austin Lyric Opera, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts and University of Texas Performing Arts Center. While conducting thesis research in Cambridge, she also completed a professional internship in Public Relations and Marketing under artistic director Robert Brustein at the American Repertory Theater at Harvard University.

Suzanne is responsible for helping raise funds for the UIUC School of Music; editing sonorities; coordinating the annual Student Awards and Commencement ceremonies; and organizing alumni activities at major conferences and cities throughout North America, such as the American Musicology Society, IMEA, MENC, Society for Ethnomusicology and the Midwest Conference. Suzanne's office is located in room 3066 of the Music Building, 1114 W. Nevada, and she may be contacted by e-mail or at 217/333-6452.