Faculty & Staff Profile

Susan Swidnicki has been teaching music at the Beginning School since 2002. In 2020, she became the McCarthey Campus music teacher, lending her wisdom to both the beginning and lower schools. Susan holds degrees in music performance from the St. Louis Conservatory of Music and the University of Utah. She holds full Orff certification from the University of Kentucky and Kodaly certification from Seattle Pacific University. She has completed the Smithsonian Multicultural Pedagogy course at the University of Washington.

Susan has been the director of choirs and Orff-Schulwerk ensembles for children and youth at Zion Lutheran Church since 1999, where she works with three-year-olds through high school seniors.

She has had an extensive performing career as an oboist and was principal oboist for Ballet West, as well as an extra oboist with the Utah Symphony for many years.

Prior to teaching in the Lower School, Susan worked as a Beverly Taylor Sorenson music and movement instructor for arts integration at Canyon Rim Academy. She served as adjunct instructor of oboe for Utah State University and Westminster University. She has presented workshops on children’s music for the Utah Montessori Conference, Utah State University, the Utah American Orff Association, and the University of Utah.

She loves good food and conversation, hiking, working in her garden, cooking, and spending time with her friends and two grown children, and walking alongside children and families as they grow as musicians and humans.

Susan was the recipient of the Beginning School's 2007 Sumner Family Excellence in Teaching Award and the Lower School's 2025 Sumner/Larsen Excellence in Teaching Faculty Award.

Read more about Susan Swidnicki in Fine Print, the magazine of Rowland Hall