Susan studied piano with Clifford Benson, and with Phyllis Sellick at the Royal College of Music, during which time she gave a Purcell Room piano recital. Her singing studies at the Royal College with Margaret Kingsley continued at the National Opera Studio.

Operatic engagements have included Glyndebourne, Bayreuth and Wexford Festivals, and the Walton Trust, Ischia. Awards include the National Mozart Singing Competition and the Richard Tauber Schubert Society Prize. Other prestigious competition successes have included the Kathleen Ferrier Awards, the Belvedere International Singing Competition, Vienna, and the Queen Sonja International Competition in Oslo.

Susan made her Wigmore Hall recital debut in 1995 (recorded by the BBC) and has given recitals at the Purcell Room, St. John's, Smith Square and St. James's Palace. Her acclaimed CD of Lutoslawski songs on the ASV label, with pianist Ann Martin-Davis, is about to be re-released.

2002 saw concerts for Buxton, Llandudno, and Stratford Festivals, in a recital programme which was nominated for the Royal Philharmonic Society's prestigious Audience Development Award. Sound Bites - inspired and based on Nigella Lawson's recipes, has already taken Susan and pianist Ann Martin-Davis to Salisbury, Cheltenham and Greenwich Festivals and will tour Nottingham and Yorkshire in June 2003.

Concerts in 2003 include Elgar's The Music Makers with Mark Deller, and a new touring project linking Schumann's song-cycle Frauenliebe und Leben with a newly-commissioned cycle by Gabriel Jackson and poet Sophie Hannah.