Susan Eischeid Portrait

Susan Eischeid

Professor of Music

  • Doctor of Musical Arts
    University of Cincinnati
Susan Eischeid currently holds the positions of Principal Oboe with the Valdosta Symphony and Professor of Music at Valdosta State University where she teaches oboe, chamber music, and music history. She received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in oboe from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and her Master of Music degree from the Philadelphia University of the Arts. Dr. Eischeid played for several years with the Mexico City Philharmonic Orchestra. She is an active solo recitalist and clinician, both nationally and internationally, and has performed with multiple orchestras across the country.

Dr. Eischeid was a long-time member of the Eastern Festival Orchestra and served on the oboe faculty of the summer Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, NC. Her major teachers include Robert Bloom, James Gorton, and Sara Lambert Bloom. In 2004 she was awarded the Excellence in Professional Activity Award from the College of the Arts at VSU and in 2017 was recipient of the VSU Presidential Excellence Award in Research.

Dr. Eischeid commissioned and appeared as soloist in the world premiere of the second oboe concerto by noted Hungarian composer Frigyes Hidas. She has commercially released her first album, Mystic Chords of Genocide, on the ACA Digital label. She has also appeared as soloist with the Valdosta Symphony Orchestra, most recently in performances of the Bellini Concerto and the Mozart Sinfonia Concertante.

Dr. Eischeid is also an author, publishing her book titled The Truth about Fania Fenelon and the Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz-Birkenau in July of 2016. As an outgrowth of her research into music of the Holocaust, she has presented lectures and recitals in over twenty cities in the United States and in Europe and received multiple grants. Between 2005-2014 she was featured in performances in Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland. In March of 2010, as part of the Old First Concerts Artist’s Series in San Francisco, CA, she commissioned and premiered a new work for oboe, piano and men’s voices by noted German composer Stefan Heucke under the aegis of The Pink Triangle Project. Her second book, Mistress of Life and Death: The Dark Journey of Maria Mandl, Head Overseer of the Women's Camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, was published in December 2023 by Kensington Press.