About the NCCP Players
Susan Nidel
Flute
Sherman Adams Memorial Chair
Flutist Susan Nidel is currently the principal flutist of Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, and Speculum Musicae. She has also served as soloist and principal flutist for many groups, including the Martha Graham and Paul Taylor Dance companies, the Stuttgart, Netherlands, and Royal Ballets, the Madeira Bach Festival, Oregon Bach Festival, and the Santa Fe Opera.
For many years she was the flutist of the Bach Chamber Soloists, performing at Wolf Trap, Caramoor, the Frick Collection, Merkin Concert Hall, and featured in Musical America. She has premiered many solo and chamber pieces including works of Elliott Carter, Milton Babbitt, and John G. Mackay, with performances at the Kennedy Center, Merkin Hall, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Radio France, the Bath (England) International Music Festival and the Warsaw Autumn Festival.
Nidel has performed more than 100 recordings. Her recording of the Mozart Flute Concertos and the Flute and Harp Concerto with Nancy Allen and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra has been named the "best recording of these works to date" by Gramophone Magazine. This CD was recently named by Deutsche Grammophon as one of its "Best all-time recordings." Other featured recordings include a Grammy-nominated CD of Aaron Copland’s music and the Grammy-winning "Shadow Dances" (Igor Stravinsky) with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.
Susan Nidel is a graduate of the University of Michigan and the Juilliard School. She is currently on the faculty of Columbia University and recently joined the faculty of New Jersey’s Montclair State University.
She is also a painter and lives in Manhattan with her husband, attorney and writer Richard O. Nidel.