Members

Susan Blyth-Schofield

• 2025 ORMTA Contribution to Teaching Award

• Ottawa Region Branch

Susan is honoured to receive the OCTA from her hometown Branch of ORMTA. Susan has spent her life in music and the arts and continues to have a mosaic career there. She was bitten by the lyric theatre bug at a very young age. Her first real performances were on a children’s TV variety show at the age of 5. She sang and performed all through childhood and high school and a few years later Susan graduated from The University of Toronto with a Bachelor of Music in Performance. This was followed by a Master’s in Performance Studies from City University and the Guild Hall (London, England). She is also an Associate of The Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto, an emeritus member of The National Association of Teachers of Singing, and a member of both Canadian Actors’ Equity Association, and The Association of Canadian Television and Radio Artists. A member of ORMTA since 2005, Susan has served on the Ottawa Region Branch’s Executive and Council in many capacities, including President, and she is currently serving on Provincial Council managing the Competitions portfolio. Although Susan taught voice from her mid-twenties, the focus of her early career was on performance. A former regional winner in the Metropolitan Opera Auditions, Susan performed in opera, operetta, and musical theatre across Canada and in Europe with such companies as The Canadian Opera Company, Opera Lyra Ottawa, Comus Music Theatre, Toronto Operetta Theatre, and Festival Estival Musical. Chamber opera has always had a special appeal for Susan, and she created three roles in that genre: Baby (Baby), The Judge (Space Opera), and Sally (Killing Time). Her concert work includes numerous recitals in Toronto, Vancouver, Washington, D.C., London, Brussels, and other Canadian and European cities. Closer to home she has performed at The National Arts Centre, as a soloist with the Musica Viva Singers, in Opera Gelato, in the Opera in Piazza concerts during Italian Week, with the Ceremonial Band of The Governor General’s Foot Guards, at Rideau Hall, and in recital at the residence of the British High Commissioner. Her performances have been heard on CBC Radio and on Belgian and Canadian television. Susan is passionate about teaching and has maintained a private vocal studio for almost forty years teaching in Ottawa, Toronto, Brussels, Geneva, and London (England). Her students include professional classical and musical theatre singers, actors, and dancers, university music performance students, aspiring high school students, and amateur performers. She has taught singing in conjunction with Canterbury High School in Ottawa since 1988. Susan joined Carleton Music as a performance instructor in 2002, shortly after her return from Europe, and has also lectured there in both the History of Opera and of Musical Theatre. Since 2013 she has been the director of the University’s Lyric Theatre Ensemble. On the academic front, Susan wrote some sixty signed articles on singers for German music encyclopaedia Die Musik in Geschickte und Gegenwart. She remains a sought-after vocal adjudicator and gives workshops and masterclasses on vocal pedagogy, interpretation, stress awareness and relaxation, and performance anxiety.

Link to Biographies and Photographs of Previous Recipients

• 2025: Susan Blyth-Schofield

• 2024: Catherine Donkin

• 2023: Sandra Webster

• 2022: Amy Boyes

• 2021: Chunson Park

• 2020: Hoda Nassim

• 2019: Brenda Eisener

• 2018: Sue Jones

• 2017: Jenny Regehr

• 2016: Sandy Menard

• 2015: Helen Sinclair

• 2014: Ann Babin

Link to Biographies and Photographs of Previous Recipients