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About Susan...
Susan Hewitt was born in Belfast and began her musical education with piano lessons when she was six years old. As soon as she could play reasonably well, she discovered she preferred making up her own tunes to the repetitive practice required in order to progress through the examination grades. Nevertheless, she stuck with it, encouraged by her father who played fiddle and loved to sing.
"He was my first musical influence and somewhat determined that at least one of his two daughters would master a musical instrument," Susan says.
She went on to study music at Queen's University, Belfast and subsequently became a secondary school music teacher. She left this after a few years in order to set up her own piano teaching practice and during this time she was also the music critic for a local newspaper.
It is only relatively recently, however, that Susan began writing poetry. When she was asked to write a song for the Irish Eurosong 2008 competition, the contest which selects the song which will represent Ireland in the annual Eurovision Song Contest, she decided to have a go. Her entry Sometimes made it through to the final six, ultimately losing out to a turkey puppet in what was Ireland's most controversial selection process ever!
Her next song, Home Again, was rather more successful, winning the Sean McCarthy Irish Ballad Competition in Finuge, Co. Kerry, in August 2008. www.finugeweekend.com. Learn more about Susan's songs, and listen to some samples, on the Songs page.
Susan considers her musical education an ongoing one. She has recently been studying classical and traditional violin and now attends guitar lessons with her daughter, something she hopes will be a useful aid to her songwriting. She still enjoys playing the piano and appreciates now the classical training she had in her youth.
"I'll always be in awe of the great Romantic composers...I never tire of listening to Rachmaninoff, Schubert and Chopin who wrote such beautiful melodies. Even today, there is so much to learn from them. The French Impressionists also made a big impression on me and I'm aware of their influence when listening to my arrangements and accompaniments. Everything nowadays seems so rhythm-led that I wonder if there'll come a day when melody will be of little significance. Hopefully not."
