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Susie Park

First Associate Concertmaster, Lillian Nippert and Edgar B. Zelle Chair

Australian-born Susie Park, the Minnesota Orchestra’s first associate concertmaster, had already toured with the Orchestra before beginning her appointment in September 2015, performing concerts and participating in educational programs when the ensemble traveled to Cuba the previous May.

Park has concertized around the world, performing solos with such European orchestras as the Vienna Symphony, Orchestre National de Lille and the London-based Royal Philharmonic; American orchestras including the Pittsburgh Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Memphis Symphony and Orchestra of St. Luke’s; the major Australian symphony orchestras including Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Tasmania, Canberra and Perth; Korea’s KBS Orchestra; and Orchestra Wellington in New Zealand. She has collaborated with conductors including Simon Rattle, Hans Vonk, Alan Gilbert, Fabio Luisi and Yehudi Menuhin, performing in venues ranging from New York’s Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall and the Metropolitan Museum of Art to Symphony Hall in Boston, the Ravinia Festival and Millenium Park in Chicago, Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, the Smithsonian Institute, Vienna Musikverein Cologne Philharmonie, Düsseldorf Tonhalle and Danish Radio Concert Hall.

Park has received numerous awards. She won top honors at the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, the Wieniawski Competition in Poland and the Yehudi Menuhin International Competition in France, which led to many performances and reengagements throughout the U.S. and Europe. She also won the Richard Goldner Concerto Competition, Ernest Llewellyn String Award and various additional awards.

Park is passionate about chamber music. She is a founding member of ECCO, the East Coast Chamber Orchestra, a conductorless ensemble comprising a diverse selection of talented chamber musicians, soloists and principal string players from American orchestras; their self-titled debut album of 2012, released on the eOne label, includes works from three centuries, by Geminiani, Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich.

In addition, Park was the violinist of the Eroica Trio from 2006 to 2012, with which she recorded the ensemble’s eighth CD, an all-American disc nominated for a Grammy, and toured internationally. She was also a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Two, collaborating with Wu Han, Gary Hoffman and Ida Kavafian. For three consecutive summers she was in residence at the Marlboro Music Festival, and she has participated in numerous tours with Musicians from Marlboro. Additional musicians with whom she has performed chamber music include members of the Guarneri, Juilliard, Emerson and Cleveland Quartets, and Kim Kashkashian, Pamela Frank, Jason Vieaux, Cho-Liang Lin and Jaime Laredo. Among her festival engagements have been performances at Music from Angel Fire, Music in the Vineyards in Napa, the Seattle, Caramoor, Skaneateles, Aspen, Ravinia, Portland and Bowdoin festivals in the U.S.; Open Chamber Music at Prussia Cove in England; Bermuda Festival; the Mozarteum Sommerakademie in Austria; and Keshet Eilon in Israel.

Park’s interest in music of all genres has also led to collaborations with artists such as jazz trumpeter Chris Botti, with whom she performed 41 consecutive shows at the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York.

A native of Sydney, Park picked up a violin at the age of three, made her solo debut at five and completed preparatory studies at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. She went on to earn a bachelor of music degree at the Curtis Institute and an artist diploma at the New England Conservatory; her teachers have included Jaime Laredo, Ida Kavafian, Donald Weilerstein, Miriam Fried, Shi-Xiang (Peter) Zhang and Christopher Kimber. In her spare time she enjoys a variety of creative arts, including knitting and clothing design.