Performer
Since the 1990’s, Susan Williams has performed and recorded extensively as soloist, chamber musician and in orchestras in many of Europe’s finest early music ensembles including Collegium Vocale Gent, Les Arts Florissants, Musica Antiqua Köln, Cantus Cölln, La Stravaganza Köln, Musiciens du Louvre, Anima Eterna, Al Ayre Espagnol, Elbipolis, and many others. She is known for her rhetorical style, emphasising the importance of developing variation of colour, nuance and articulation as a way to show the many facets of the natural trumpet. Susan founded her own ensemble Clarini and co-founded the Bachischen Collegium Bremen.

Teacher
The natural trumpet can only produce the notes of the overtone series, and thus can play melodies only in the difficult upper register. Each note requires a particular and exact form and speed of air. Susan’s approach to teaching is a holistic one, drawing on baroque practice as well as knowledge from modern performance science. In addition to teaching at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague and at the University of the Arts Bremen, Susan gives several natural trumpet workshops at other institutions each year.

Coach
Susan’s elective courses on practice methods and performance preparation uses an approach based on two concepts: The Musician as Instrument and Music as a Language. She has given lectures and workshops both at conservatoires and at international conferences on topics such as flow, audiation, mental training and mindset.

Researcher
Currently Susan is undergoing a doctoral study researching the effects of attentional focus on skill acquisition and on optimal performance.