Alumna of the Year

Choir director named alumna of the year

Susan Dyer Knight

Memorial University's Alumni Association named Susan Dyer Knight its Alumna of the Year for 2000. It is the highest honour awarded by the alumni association.

Ms. Knight is the founder, director and conductor of the internationally acclaimed Newfoundland Symphony Youth Choir (NSYC). She is also a teacher, university lecturer, clinician and an energetic advocate of the arts.

Munden Batstone, a Memorial alumnus, nominated Ms. Knight for the award, calling her "a person with outstanding talent and accomplishments."

"Her intense commitment to high quality work, and the very special relationship that she fosters with young children can only be admired by those of us who strive for excellence in education.

Ms. Knight graduated from Memorial's School of Music in 1983 with a bachelor of music and a bachelor of music education. She won the university medals for academic excellence in both disciplines.

In 1992, she created the NSYC. The ensemble has since toured throughout the province and Canada. They have undertaken three international tour in Florida, England and Finland. They have also recorded three critically acclaimed CDs, with two more in the works.

The accolades have followed. Recent honours include: National finalists in the CBC Radio National Choral Competition (2000); winner, East Coast Music Awards, Best Classical Recording for Reaching from the Rock (1999); Cultural Tourism Award, Province of Newfoundland and Labrador (1999); and the Kiwanis George S. Mathieson Trophy for the finest choral performance in Canada, 19 and under (1998).

In August 2000 of this year, Ms. Knight won the National Woman of Inspiration Award for the Arts from Canadian Living Magazine and Avon Canada. She has also been named a Paul Harris Fellow by the St. John's Rotary Club.

Ms. Knight's success comes, in part, from her intense love of Newfoundland and Labrador.

"It would have to be something pretty devastating that would make me not stay here ’til the end of my days, working until the last minute I could work," she says. And she vows to do "anything that I can do to ensure the valuing of this place in its own people and beyond here, to make sure that it's here for other generations."

In addition to her duties with the NSYC, Ms. Knight is the artistic co-director of FESTIVAL 500, a concept she originally proposed in 1997. The choral festival and symposium was a hallmark of the Cabot 500 celebrations and has since been established as a biennial event.

She is the creator of So you always wanted to sing, a choral course for all ages and skill levels. It is offered through Memorial's School of Continuing Education. She is an active proponent of endeavours in music research, and is also working towards her doctorate from Roehampton Insitute, London, U.K.

The Alumna of the Year award was presented to Susan Dyer Knight on Nov. 30 at the University Club, located in the Arts and Administration Building Annex.

To read a feature article about Ms. Knight click here.