Susann McDonald

• Name — Susann McDonald • Birth Name — Susann Hackett McDonald • Born — 26 May 1935 • Birthplace — Rock Island, Illinois, U.S. • Died — 29 May 2025 • Occupation — * Harpist • Academic teacher • Education — Conservatoire de Paris • Organizations — * Juilliard School • Jacobs School of Music • World Harp Congress • USA International Harp Competition • Awards — World Harp Congress Award

McDonald was born in Rock Island, Illinois on May 26, 1935, to George McDonald and his wife Catherine née Hackett. After studies in Chicago and New York City, at age 15 she entered the Conservatoire de Paris, where she studied with Henriette Renié and Lily Laskine. In 1955 she was the first American to win the Premier Prix de Harpe. Not long thereafter, she placed second in the first International Harp Competition in Israel; in 1970, she returned to the competition as a judge. Around this time she also had an audience with Juliana of the Netherlands following a recital at the Concertgebouw. From her early years, McDonald toured widely; besides Israel and the Netherlands, her travels took her to South America and Canada for recitals and to Europe for radio and television broadcasts. McDonald began an academic career, teaching for a time simultaneously as head of the harp departments at the Universities of Arizona and Southern California and California State College at Los Angeles. From 1975 to 1985, she headed the harp department at the Juilliard School. In 1981, she became chairman of the harp department at Indiana University-Bloomington in the Jacobs School of Music, and developed it into the largest harp department in the world. She was named a Distinguished Professor of Music in 1989. Her students include Nancy Allen,Sarah Bullen,Cristina Braga, Maria Casale, Erzsébet Gaál, Şirin Pancaroğlu, Anna-Maria Ravnopolska-Dean, María Luisa Rayan-Forero, Natalie Salzman, Kristie Smith, Jessica Suchy-Pilalis, and Naoko Yoshino. Her students achieved principal positions at orchestras including the New York Philharmonic,Chicago Symphony,Berlin Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Orchestre National de France. She held annual master classes at her summer home in Switzerland. McDonald also played a prominent role in organizations devoted to the harp. She was a co-founder of the World Harp Congress in 1983, and served as its artistic director until 2011. She was honorary president of the Association Internationale des Harpistes, and she was in 1989 the founder and music director of the USA International Harp Competition. In 2008, McDonald received the World Harp Congress Award of Recognition for Service to the International Harp Community at the Tenth World Harp Congress. Only three other individuals received this award. She founded a publishing house specialised on arrangements for harp and teaching methods, Music Works-Harp Editions, together harpist Linda Wood Rollo. On October 31, 2002, a fire consumed the home in Bloomington that McDonald shared with organist Diane Bish. Among the many personal possessions lost were a Yamaha grand piano and Rodgers digital organ, but several of McDonald's prized harps were saved by firefighters, and both women escaped without injuries. Much of her collection of sheet music was destroyed or damaged in the fire, but partly restored for the archives of the Jacobs School of Music. McDonald died on May 29, 2025, three days after her 90th birthday.