Conrad Stephen Susa is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

, particularly known for his opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

s. His 1973 chamber opera, Transformations, set to texts from the poems of Anne Sexton

Anne Sexton

Anne Sexton was an American poet, known for her highly personal, confessional verse. She won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1967...

, is one of the most frequently performed operas by an American composer and was one of the featured operas of the 2006 Wexford Opera Festival. His other compositions include choral works and incidental music for various plays. His music is published by the E.C. Schirmer Music Company.

Susa was born in Springdale, Pennsylvania

Springdale, Pennsylvania

Springdale is a borough in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, northeast of Pittsburgh along the Allegheny River. The population was 3,405 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Springdale is located at ....

 and educated at Carnegie Institute of Technology

Carnegie Institute of Technology

The Carnegie Institute of Technology , is the name for Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Engineering. It was first called the Carnegie Technical Schools, or Carnegie Tech, when it was founded in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie who intended to build a “first class technical school” in Pittsburgh,...

 and the Juilliard School

Juilliard School

The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...

, where his teachers included William Bergsma

William Bergsma

-Biography:After studying piano with his mother, a former opera singer, and then the viola, Bergsma moved on to study composition; his most significant teachers were Howard Hanson and Bernard Rogers. Bergsma attended Stanford University for two years before moving on to the Eastman School of...

, Vincent Persichetti

Vincent Persichetti

Vincent Ludwig Persichetti was an American composer, teacher, and pianist. An important musical educator and writer, Persichetti was a native of Philadelphia...

 and, so he says, P. D. Q. Bach

P. D. Q. Bach

P. D. Q. Bach is a fictitious composer invented by musical satirist "Professor" Peter Schickele. In a gag that Schickele has developed over a five-decade-long career, he performs "discovered" works of this forgotten member of the Bach family...

. In 1988 he joined the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music

San Francisco Conservatory of Music

San Francisco Conservatory of Music, formerly the California Conservatory of Music, founded in 1917, is a music school, with an enrollment of about 400 students. It was launched by Ada Clement and Lillian Hodgehead in the remodeled home of Lillian's parents on Sacramento Street. It was called the...

 where he is Chair of the Composition Department.

Selected works

Operas

• Transformations
  Transformations (opera)
  Transformations is a chamber opera in two acts by the American composer Conrad Susa with a libretto of ten poems by Anne Sexton from her 1971 book Transformations, a collection of confessional poetry based on stories by the Brothers Grimm...
  
  (1973)
• Black River (1975, revised 1981)
• The Love of Don Perlimplin (1984)
• The Wise Woman (1994)
• The Dangerous Liaisons
  The Dangerous Liaisons
  The Dangerous Liaisons is an opera in two acts and eight scenes, with music by Conrad Susa to an English libretto by Philip Littell. It is based on the novel Les Liaisons dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. The opera received its first performance by the San Francisco Opera on 10 September...
  
  (1994, revised 1996-97)

Other works

• Hymns for the Amusement of Children (1972)
• Carols and Lullabies: Christmas in the Southwest (1992)