Susan Kander’s music has been heard across the United States, Europe, China, Australia and South Africa. Her latest opera, Carry My Own Suitcase, with libretto co-written with Roberta Gumbel, will premiere at Buffalo Opera Unlimited in May 2026. It has been generously supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and a Discovery Grant from Opera America’s Virginia Toulmin Fund. Their 2018 opera dwb (driving while black) for which soprano Gumbel supplied the libretto, has enjoyed ten productions to date across the country. Its 2021 Albany Records release, with Ms. Gumbel singing the one-woman opera, garnered a Critics Choice award in Opera News, calling it “deeply affecting and innovatively conceived…transcendent…achingly lovely.” Washington Post called it “searing…sung drama”. Kander’s 2016 MSR chamber music release Hermestänze was hailed as “raptly serene… eloquent… wrenchingly powerful,” (Gramophone) Other commissioning organizations include the National Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Opera, Opera Theater of St. Louis, Opera Columbus, Lyric Opera of Kansas City. A recipient of a 2023 Chamber Music America Commissioning Grant, the resulting three-movement septet, Melodies Lost and Found, premiered in Kansas City in 2025. Susan is a Fellow of the MacDowell Colony and lives in New York. www.susankander.net