ABOUT SUSHEEL

Singer, actress, filmmaker, scholar, and author Susheel Bibbs has toured in opera and concert presentations for over 30 years in the US, Canada, Asia, and Europe.  Bibbs received degrees in Opera and Vocal Performance from Boston University’s School for the Arts and The New England Conservatory of Music as well as diplomas in Lieder and Opera from the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. Early in her career, she apprenticed, danced, debuted, and taught movement at the Santa Fe Opera, and won the coveted LAID Foundation one-year stipend in voice.

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   Bibbs made her recital debut In Boston’s famed Jordan Hall and her operatic debut with the renowned Opera Company of Boston under Sarah Caldwell, where she was on their solo roster and eventually won the lead in a world premiere. Concurrently she sang internationally in opera and concert in venues such as The Santa Fe Opera, Lincoln Center (Geffen Hall), The LA and San Francisco Chamber Orchestras, & PBS (WGBH-TV) Opera, Robert Schuller’s international Hour of Power,  a program with renowned pianist Erich Werba for the Salzburg Festival,   and tours with Associate Artists (predecessor to Boston Lyric) Opera in Kurt Weill’s Street Scene and Donizetti's Don Pasquale. 

   Years later she received acclaim for 20 years internationally at large under JDees Presents and Foster-Neuman Artists Management in addition to the Missouri and California Arts Council touring programs (details here under the "Biography tab"). She also toured her own one-woman drama and musical on Mary Ellen Pleasant, The Mother of Civil Rights in California, nationally and in Canada under California Humanities, The National Parks Service's Network-to-Freedom Program, and Canada's Promised Land initiative. 

 

   In 2012 Bibbs founded The Living Heritage Foundation (LHF) to "pay it forward" by assisting other artists in their careers (www.thelivingheritagefoundaton.org), and she continues to do lectures, masterclasses, and solo appearances.  In  TV  and now in film production related to her work.  Susheel Bibbs has garnered a national EMMY and now 26 documentary film awards, including two coveted Telly Awards. Her films on Pleasant and The Hyers Sisters are now on PBS, and in 2020 she was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by Marquis Who's Who Among Women and profiled nationally in a PBS Arts Showcase. She has received the Highest Commendation from the City and County of San Francisco for her contributions to the Arts and Humanities, and in 2022 her work is being presented and archived under The National Endowment for the Humanities. (susheelbibbs.com)