The musicologist Susan Youens is widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost authorities on German song, and the music of Franz Schubert and Hugo Wolf. She is one of very few people in the United States who have won four fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as fellowships from the National Humanities Center, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.
A popular speaker, Dr. Youens has delivered lectures in Germany, France, England, Canada, Spain, Austria, Poland, Switzerland, Ireland, Scotland, and thirty states in the U.S. She has also taught at the Steans Institute for Young Artists of the Ravinia Festival, the Oxford Lieder Festival, La Jolla Music Festival, the Vancouver International Song Institute, and the Britten-Pears Institute – Aldeburgh Festival. The universities at which she has given invited lectures include Harvard University, Cambridge University, Oxford University, Humboldt-Universität in Berlin, the Royal College of Music, The Juilliard School of Music, University of Pennsylvania, Cornell University, Cincinnati Conservatory, the Guildhall School of Music, Reed College, Tufts University, Trinity College Dublin, Williams College, and more.
Dr. Youens is frequently consulted by such great artists as Graham Johnson, Roger Vignoles, Malcolm Martineau, and Margo Garrett and has collaborated with them in lectures, lecture-recitals, and master classes.
A member of the American Musicological Society for over forty years, Youens has served as an elected member of the Board of Directors, chair of the Pisk Prize Committee (a prize for the best paper by a junior scholar at the national conference), chair of the Kinkeldey Committee (the prize for best book by a senior scholar), and chair of the Publications Committee. In November 2012, she was made an Honorary Member of the society, an award granted to those “long-standing members of the Society who have made outstanding contributions to furthering its stated object.”
