While growing up in Massachusetts Susan began trumpet lessons with her uncle at age eight, joined the musician's union at fifteen and began playing with the local concert band. Other teachers included Armando Ghitalla and Roger Voisin, principal trumpeters of the Boston Symphony.
As a Boston freelancer she played everything from big bands to Broadway musicals to the Ringling Brothers Circus. Classical performances included operas, orchestral concerts, chamber brass gigs with large ensembles or brass quintets, and solo recitals (with organ) on historical and modern trumpets.
Her CD, Baroque Treasures for Trumpet and Organ, won critical acclaim in Fanfare ("assured and musical"), American Record Guide ("flawless technique, tasteful dynamics"), and New England Performer ("sublime tone and warmth").
Susan has taught at Brown University, Wheaton College, UMass-Lowell and Berklee College of Music. At Berklee she created a history course about 20th Century women musicians, jazz and classical, and moderated Women in Music forums with panelists: jazz pianist Carolyn Wilkins, jazz flutist Barbara London, trombonist Abbie Conant, rock guitarist Lauren Passarelli, conductor Kay George Roberts, musicologist Judith Tick, pianist Virginia Eskin, and composer Pozzi Escot.
At right: A trumpet master class
PUBLICATIONS
Biographical entries: in American Biography (Scribner's) include: Trumpeter Les Elgart, jazz singer Carmen McRae (2000); Jazz pianist Hazel Scott, conductor Antonia Brico (1998-99); Oscar Levant, Thomas Schippers, E. Power Biggs (1994-95); in Routledge's Jewish Women in America: Trombonist Dorothy Ziegler (1997)
Edna White Chandler: A Brasswoman Pioneer, Women of Note Quarterly, Volume 2, Issue 4, November 1994
Growing Up in America: 1900-1920, a video documentary (1981-83)
Her New Orleans crime thriller, Absolution, was published in 2008
Susan hosted a radio show with music, news and interviews (1981-83)
DISCOVERIES
In 1992 Susan met Edna White, one of the foremost trumpet soloists of the early 20th Century. At the age of 99 Edna was blind and her heart was failing, but her mind remained clear and her spirit indomitable. See her biography and pictures of her in the Archives!
While serving on the Pioneers Committee of the International Women’s Brass Conference (IWBC), Susan did extensive research on women brass players. At the first IWBC conference at Washington University (1993) the Pioneers Committee distributed a booklet documenting hundreds of women brass players.
In 2005 she discovered a "lost" all-woman band, the Original Shades of Blue (see photos in Images) and persuaded the New Orleans Times-Picayune to run a feature article on them. To preserve their history she interviewed Rita Gibliant, whose sister played in the band. The video is available at the Tulane University Hogan Jazz Archives and the National Park Service Jazz Historic Site.
SPEAKER and NOVELIST
A recognized authority on women musicians and a sought-after speaker, Susan addressed the Tau Beta Sigma National Convention (Norfolk, VA) in 2004. Since moving to New Orleans in 2001 she has given jazzwomen lectures at the Jazz National Historic Park Visitor Center, branches of the New Orleans Public Library, Dillard University, and the N. O. International Music Colloquium at the annual Louis Armstrong Festival.
A course at Emerson College inspired her passion for writing. Her crime thrillerwas published in 2008. "The book manages to hold its own even in this crowded genre, thanks to its relentless tempo and Fleet's sharp writing." Kirkus Discoveries
