Artist Manager

Tour Manager

Production Manager

Singer

Percussionist

SUSAN is a professional singer, percussionist, tour/production manager and artist manager for two Grammy Award-winning recording legends, Melissa Manchester and Sheena Easton.  She was also the Assistant Producer of Manchester's internationally-distributed, Billboard-charted full-length contemporary jazz album in 2015.

 

SUSAN was born in Lincoln, Nebraska where her mother was a concert vocalist with the Lincoln Symphony and Opera Omaha, and a professor of music at Nebraska Wesleyan University.  She introduced SUSAN to the classics and, by the age of 11, SUSAN was performing for area churches and schools.

 

While attending high school, SUSAN won local and state competitions and went on to become First Runner-up to America’s Junior Miss 1974.  The scholarship prize allowed her to attend Lawrence Conservatory of Music in Wisconsin for two years, followed by two years of study at the University of Southern California, where she earned her Bachelor of Music Degree.  It was at USC that she met alumnus Tom Bahler who gave her a start in the Los Angeles studio singing industry.

 

SUSAN’s first studio recording venture was as a background vocalist on The Carpenters’ Christmas album, an engagement that was followed by concert performances with the duo in Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe.

 

Subsequent recordings have included vocal sessions with Diana Ross, Tanya Tucker, Truth, Quincy Jones and her esteemed mentor, Melissa Manchester, including the soundtrack of Manchester's score for “Lady And The Tramp II”.

 

SUSAN has also been honored to perform in concert with James Ingram, Roberta Flack, Jeffrey Osborne, Peabo Bryson, Christopher Cross, Michael McDonald, Natalie Cole, Evonne Elliman, Doc Severinson, Aaron Neville, Oleta Adams and Al Jarreau.

 

Her performance venues around the globe have included the Kennedy Center, the Hollywood Bowl, Radio City Music Hall, Universal Amphitheatre, the Saban Theatre, the White House and Carnegie Hall.

 

Television appearances have included AMC’s “In Concert At The Rainbow Room”, Fox’s “Arsenio Hall Show” and NBC’s “Tonight Show with Johnny Carson”.

 

Musical theater has also captured SUSAN’s attention, with lead roles in the Los Angeles productions of “Swingtime” and the long-running “Bittersuite”.  She recently produced the Equity musical "Irina Maleeva's ILLUSIONS" in Los Angeles, under the direction of hit Broadway writer/director Randy Johnson ("A Night With Janis Joplin").

 

SUSAN’s proudest productions have included two sons, Stephenson and Garrison, both university music majors. (She couldn't talk them into a more sensible line of work.)   SUSAN and her husband, actor/director/writer/coach Christopher Holder, make their home in Eagle Rock, California.

 

SUSAN also has general event production, reserved-seat box office and automated general admission ticketing duties in her resume, having served as the Operations Supervisor for the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds (Fairplex) for nearly a decade.