About

Praised for his “sophisticated writing” (GTM) and work that “weave(s) a trance-like mystical aura” (Zamir Chorale), Ari Sussman (b. 1993) is a Philadelphia based pianist, clawhammer banjoist, and composer of vocal, chamber, orchestral, choral, and electronic music. His music has been featured, commissioned, or performed throughout the United States and Europe by the KC VITAs Chamber Choir, soprano Tony Arnold, NPR, Zamir Chorale of Boston, Ensemble Ipse, Bang on a Can, American Modern Ensemble, New York Youth Symphony, the Terezin Music Foundation, Juventas New Music Ensemble, Eighth Blackbird, the Tanglewood Music Center, and others. Kabbalah, the natural world, cosmology, meditation, metaphysics, ancient and contemporary poetry, the human condition, and Interactionism are among Sussman's non-musical influences and interests. As a result, Sussman's music illustrates equivocal worlds of sounds that are ambient, euphonious, and ethereal in nature.

Recently named composer-in-residence with the Boise-based ‘208 ensemble,’ Sussman has won the American Composers Forum: Philadelphia Chapter: Young Composers Scholarship, two Honorable Mentions for the Guild of Temple Musicians Young Composers Award, the University of Michigan Brehm Prize in Choral Composition, and a “First Music” commission from the New York Youth Symphony. Sussman has received an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Award, a BMI Student Composer Award, and fellowships from the Blackbird Creative Lab, the Bang on a Can Summer Festival, and the Tanglewood Music Center.

An accomplished concert pianist, Sussman has performed many concerts and recitals throughout the Philadelphia, Boston, and Ann Arbor metro areas. With a fondness for musical theatre, Sussman has held music directorships for productions of Hairspray, Les Misérables, The Last Five Years, and many others. With a love for American traditional/roots music, Sussman plays piano and clawhammer banjo for English country dance bands, Contra-dance bands, and Old-time bands.

Sussman holds Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees with honors in Composition from the New England Conservatory of Music where he received the Donald Martino Award for Excellence in Composition, and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Composition from the University of Michigan. In addition to serving as Director of Music at Temple Adath Israel of the Main Line, Sussman is currently an Adjunct Professor of Music Theory and Composition at the Temple University Boyer College of Music and Dance, and the West Chester University of Pennsylvania Wells School of Music. His primary musical mentors include Michael Gandolfi, Kati Agócs, Evan Chambers, and Kristin Kuster.

Sussman enjoys long walks, playing basketball, drinking tea, Curb Your Enthusiasm, mancala, cheesecake, and avidly rooting for Philadelphian and University of Michigan sports teams. Sussman is a member of BMI and the Landscape Music Composers Network.