Conductor and chorus director Susanne Sheston is currently the Chorus Director of the acclaimed Santa Fe Opera. As a chorus director, Sheston has collaborated with leading operatic and symphonic conductors. An advocate and champion of new music, Sheston has contributed substantially to the Santa Fe Opera's renowned promotion of new opera, creating the choral preparations for nine world premieres and numerous North American premieres. Sheston was chorus master for the Grammy-Award-Winning world premiere of Mason Bates and Mark Campbell's THE (R)EVOLUTION OF STEVE JOBS (Best Opera Recording), recorded live on the Pentatone label. She was also chorus master for the Grammy-nominated recording of Jennifer Higdon and Gene Scheer's COLD MOUNTAIN. Most recently, she prepared the acclaimed Santa Fe Opera Chorus for the North American premiere of Tobias Picker’s LILI ELBE.
Additionally, Sheston plays a pivotal role in the Santa Fe Opera's Apprentice Program for Singers, contributing guidance throughout the casting and planning processes, and she is an advisor throughout the entire summer curriculum.
As a conductor, Sheston recently led performances of the world premiere of Finding Wright, by Laura Kaminsky and Andrea Fellows Fineberg, for Dayton Opera (2022), additionally serving as the project’s musical consultant during the development of the piece. As a longtime staff conductor with Utah Symphony | Utah Opera, Sheston regularly conducted the orchestra’s annual Messiah Sing-In, numerous gala concerts, and full-scale opera productions. She also led Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 and Strauss’ Vier Letzte Lieder with the Ridgefield Symphony Orchestra, and Stephen Paulus’ Shoes for the Santa Niño with Santa Fe Opera. Sheston’s acclaimed debut with the Deer Valley Music Festival, summer home of the Utah Symphony, was a concert of Mozart and Haydn symphonic and choral works.
In addition to deep experience in the operatic canon, Sheston directed the Utah Symphony Chorus for ten years. Her choral work with the Utah Symphony included large-scale and chamber works with orchestra, across a broad range of both standard and contemporary repertoire. Concurrently, Sheston prepared over 50 productions as chorus master with Utah Opera.
Previously, Sheston was the director of both the Utah Symphony Chorus and the Utah Opera Chorus in Salt Lake City, Utah, as well as Chorus Master and Associate Conductor at Des Moines Metro Opera. Her tenure with the Utah Symphony brought the opportunity to prepare a wide range of major choral works with orchestra, including choral symphonies of Beethoven, Mahler, and Vaughan Williams; the Requiems of Mozart, Fauré, Brahms, and Verdi; dramatic pieces such as Berlioz's Damnation of Faust and L'Enfance du Christ, Orff's Carmina Burana, Mendelssohn's Elijah, and the Bernstein Mass; as well as less frequently heard repertoire such as Schoenberg's Friede auf Erden, Grieg's complete Peer Gynt, Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky (film), and Michael Tippett's A Child of Our Time, among many others. Her work as the chorus master and assistant conductor of Utah Opera, where she also contributed to artist casting assignments, included preparation of over 50 productions, spanning eleven seasons.
Both an enthusiastic teacher and keen champion of emerging and young artists, Sheston shares in the development of the world-class Apprentice Artists of the Santa Fe Opera. Previously, Dr. Sheston taught piano, choral music and music history at Simpson College for three years at the beginning of her career. She currently makes her home in Salt Lake City, Utah, and in Santa Fe, New Mexico.