Opera singer Susan Owen from Salisbury, the daughter of Mildred Huff Simerson and Bob Huff, recently completed her third successful academic year as a professor of voice at the University of Memphis.
Together with her husband the German stage director Michael Leinert, she founded, in October 2007, The Chamber Opera of Memphis (www.chamberoperamemphis.org), a private opera company.
The one-woman opera, “The Medium,” by the British composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies was such a tremendous start that Owen was invited to perform this exciting piece also in Germany in February and March 2008, in Hamburg and Duesseldorf. The audience was enthusiastic and Owen received fantastic reviews.
Another creation of the active Salisbury soprano is the Memphis Opera and Song Academy, a summer academy for professional singers on the verge of international careers in Europe, which has just finished its second year with 20 students from 14 States, Canada and Italy . The Summer Academy will be continued in 2009 (http://operasongacademy.memphis.edu).
And last, but not least: Owen and her husband founded the first and only Louis Spohr Society of the United States in January 2008 to promote the work of this once-famous, but today nearly forgotten German composer.
Owen discovered several Spohr songs which were believed to be lost, and will edit them with a German Publisher in 2009. With these newly released songs the Louis Spohr Society of the United States celebrates the 150th anniversary of Spohr’s death and his 225th birthday.
For more information, visit www.louis-spohr-society.org.