Dr. Suzanne Rita Byrnes currently teaches Music Education at Florida State University. Dr. Byrnes directs the FSU Capital Children’s Choir, directs the Summer Orff Schulwerk workshop, and teaches a variety of courses; the children’s choir internship, music in early childhood, and ESOL in the music classroom. Dr. Byrnes received her PhD in Music Education from FSU in 1994, with an emphasis in choral conducting. She also earned an MEd in Teaching English as a Second Language from the University of Cincinnati, Ohio and a Master of Music in Choral Conducting from McGill University.
Dr. Byrnes directed the Kansas City Children’s Chorus for 12 years, taught Choral Arranging, and was a guest lecturer in many classes at the Conservatory at the University of Missouri – Kansas City. She also managed and taught in her Kindermusik® studio at UMKC for 8 years.
Suzanne is French-Canadian and hails from Ottawa, Canada where she taught in the Arts Concentration program at École Secondaire De-La-Salle, where she directed choral, band, and orchestra programs, and participated in drama productions.
Dr. Byrnes has studied choral conducting with Dr. Fred Stoltzfus (University of Illinois, formerly at McGill University), Dr. André Thomas (FSU), Dr. Judy Bowers (FSU), Rodney Eichenberger (FSU), Jon Washburn (Vancouver Chamber Choir), James Jordan (Westminster Choir College), and Frauke Haasemann (Westminster Choir College, now deceased). She also studied instrumental and choral arranging with Canadian composer, Donald Patriquin. For more than 20 years, she served as the associate editor for the Journal of Music Therapy and has also edited for Music Therapy Perspectives and the Missouri Journal of Research in Music Education.
Suzanne has served as a clinician/presenter in Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Virginia, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and in Canada.
Contributing Artist on:
La laine des moutons
Parton, la mer est belle!
Three French Songbirds