Suzanne Stephens

Suzanne Stephens

Suzanne Stephens in 1988.
Background information
Birth name Suzanne Stephens
Born (1946-07-28) July 28, 1946
Waterloo, Iowa, U.S.
Genres Classical
Occupation(s) soloist, chamber musician
Instruments Clarinet, Bassett horn, Bass clarinet
Years active 1970s–present
Labels Deutsche Grammophon, Acanta, ECM, Stockhausen Complete Edition
Associated acts Karlheinz Stockhausen, Kathinka Pasveer
Website www.stockhausen.org/stephens.html

Suzanne Stephens (born July 28, 1946) is an American clarinetist, resident in Germany, described as "an outstanding performer and tireless promoter of the clarinet and basset horn" (Hoeprich 2008, 218).

Biography

Suzanne Stephens was born in Waterloo, Iowa, the daughter of an American military officer, and grew up in the US, Heidelberg in Germany, and Saumur sur Loire in France (Kurtz 1992, 201). She studied clarinet initially with Ralph Hills in Fairfax, Virginia, and Sidney Forrest in Washington, D.C. She then studied in Paris with Ulysses Delecluse and Marcel Jean, before enrolling at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where she studied with Jerome Stowell, second clarinetist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, receiving the degrees Bachelor of Music Education and Master of Music. She won a Fulbright Scholarship in 1969–70, with which she pursued further studies under Hans Deinzer at the Academy of Music and Theater in Hanover. After passing the Konzertexamen there, she won the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis at Darmstadt and a silver medal at the International Clarinet Competition in Geneva, both in 1972. In 1973 she was appointed principal clarinetist of the Radio Orchestra of the South German Radio in Stuttgart, a position she held until 1975. In 1974–75 she was part of the German Young Soloists Podium (Grass, Demus, and Hagmann 2002, 108).

In March 1974 she was a guest artist with the Oeldorf Group, a collective founded in 1971 by Peter Eötvös, David C. Johnson, Joachim Krist, Mesias Maiguashca, and Gaby Schumacher. They adopted this name because many of them lived in Oeldorf, a district of the municipality of Kürten, and gave concerts of new music in a barn there. Most members of the group were closely connected with Karlheinz Stockhausen, who lived nearby, and at that time was rehearsing his latest composition, Herbstmusik, with the group. Stockhausen added a concluding duet for clarinet and viola, titled "Laub und Regen" (Leaves and Rain), for Stephens to perform with Krist. Although Herbstmusik was not a success at its premiere at the Bremen Pro Musica Festival on May 4, 1974, it led to one of the most fruitful collaborations in history between a clarinetist and a composer, which resulted in more than thirty works featuring both the clarinet, bass clarinet, and basset horn (Hoeprich 2008, 368; Kurtz 1992, 200–202; Weston 1995, 104–05).

Since 1974, Stephens has performed Stockhausen's works, always from memory, in Europe, Japan, Israel, India, South America, Russia, and the USA. Stockhausen's opera cycle Licht includes a prominent basset-horn part in the role of Eve, also written for Stephens (Grass, Demus, and Hagmann 2002, 108; Hoeprich 2008, 257.

It was at Stockhausen’s suggestion that Stephens took up the basset horn, in order that she should play a middle-register instrument between the trumpet and trombone, two of the other principal instruments in the opera cycle Licht, begun by Stockhausen in 1977. Stephens was often more of a co-creator than just an interpreter, collaborating in the exploration of all the dimensions of performance, including new playing techniques and special effects (such as flutter tonguing, glissandos, singing while playing, microtones, breath and key noises), as well as special choreography and costumes. The basset horn Suzanne Stephens plays is an instrument built by G. Leblanc Cie/Paris in 1977, with which she uses an E♭ alto-clarinet mouthpiece in order to increase the resonance of the noises (Grass, Demus, and Hagmann 2002, 108–109; Hoeprich 2008, 218–19, 257).

The monumental basset-horn part Licht by itself amounts to some eight hours of music: substantial portions of Donnerstag (premiered in 1981 at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, new staging in 1985 at the Royal Opera at Covent Garden in London), Montag (premiered in May 1988 at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan), and Freitag (premiered at the Leipzig Opera in 1996), as well as scenes from Mittwoch (fourth scene, Michaelion, premiered in 1998 at the Prinzregententheater, Munich) and Sonntag (third scene, Licht-Bilder, premiered October 16, 2004 in Donaueschingen). More recently she performed the world premieres of the Fifth and Sixth Hours of Stockhausen’s last and unfinished chamber-music cycle Klang: Harmonien, for unaccompanied bass clarinet (July 11, 2007 in the Sülztalhalle, Kürten, during the Stockhausen Courses there), and Schönheit, for bass clarinet, flute, and trumpet (at the Grande Auditório of the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, on October 5, 2009).

Her involvement in the production of scores and records of Stockhausen works is very important to her, as is teaching and coaching the many clarinetists who have come to her for help in learning these works. Her main preoccupation is to guarantee the future of these compositions.

Discography

References

Further reading

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