SUSAN NARES MA, GTCL, PGCE, FAMI
Susan is a graduate of Trinity College of Music, London. Her career moved from performance and teaching to music therapy in 2005 when she graduated as a music therapist from Bristol University. This achievement followed a long held conviction about the healing properties of music making and listening.
Her choral experience is broad ranging and her musical interests eclectic. Growing up she gained musical training, in part, through singing with church choirs. As a student she sang with the London Choral Society and the BBC choral society. Susan also regularly performed professionally with smaller chamber ensembles. Her vocal journey led her into singing with an overtone choir, performing music for film and leading the chamber choir, Careless Vespers.
Susan has worked with choirs in school and community settings and was actively involved in the ‘singing for the brain’ movement in collaboration with the Dorset NHS Speech and Language Therapy team. After arriving in West Cork Susan began leading a local church choir. She also founded the Project Choir and directed the world premier of a new oratorio by local composer Justin Grounds. She is hoping to continue Diana’s excellent work by promoting the West Cork Choral Singers in bringing great choral repertoire to West Cork.
PS. Susan says that playing the harp is very much a hobby and that flute and piano accompaniment were her main studies.