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Dr. Suzanne Tirk

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Suzanne Tirk

Dr. Suzanne Tirk

Associate Professor of Music (Clarinet)
Assistant Director for Recruitment and Engagement

Office: Catlett Music Center 207
Email: stirk@ou.edu

Clarinet Studio Links

Dr. Suzanne Tirk is Associate Professor of Clarinet at the University of Oklahoma, a member of the Oklahoma Wind Quintet, and the former Director of the OU Clarinet Symposium. A dynamic performer and teacher, Dr. Tirk has established a national and international reputation with numerous performance and masterclass presentations throughout North, Central, and South America, Asia, and Australia. She has served as principal clarinet with the Wichita Symphony Orchestra and Norman Philharmonic Orchestra, and has performed with the Classical Music Festival Orchestra in Austria and Hungary. Dr. Tirk has been a guest recitalist and clinician at several International Clarinet Association ClarinetFests®, North Dakota State University Clarinet Day, Southeast Missouri Single Reed Day, Midwest ClariFest, Southern Mississippi University Clarinet Symposium, Potsdam Clarinet Summit, OU Clarinet Symposium, and the Xi'an, China International Clarinet and Saxophone Festival.

In addition to OU, Dr. Tirk has served on the faculties of the Interharmony International Music Festival in Arcidosso, Italy, Wichita State University, and Bemidji State University. Her students have been highly successful, holding university professorships, teaching K-12 music, maintaining private studios, auditioning into symphony orchestras, military bands, and chamber ensembles, and working in the field of music business. During her tenure at Wichita State University, Dr. Tirk received the College of Fine Arts Excellence in Teaching Award and performed with the ensemble in residence, Lieurance Woodwind Quintet. She can be heard on the recording of the Lieurance Quintet, Music from the Americas, released by Summit Records in 2011. Dr. Tirk is a Buffet Crampon performing artist and is a clinician with the “Buffet Pedagogics Project,” providing free online clinics and masterclasses to music programs throughout the world.

Active in several professional organizations, Dr. Tirk hold memberships with the International Clarinet Association, the College Music Society, the National Association for Music Education, Oklahoma Music Educators Association, and Phi Kappa Phi. Dr. Tirk has written an article for The Instrumentalist magazine on clarinet fundamentals, and has presented clinics for the Midwest Clinic: An International Band and Orchestra Clinic, NAfME, the Oklahoma Music Teachers Association, the Montana Music Educators Association, the Iowa Bandmasters Association Conference, the Kansas Music Educators Association, the Kansas Bandmasters Association, the Senseney Music Total Band Director Workshop, and the Wichita Metropolitan Music Teachers Association.

Dr. Tirk holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, and a Master of Music degree and Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Michigan State University. Her teachers have included Elsa Ludewig Verdehr, Charles Neidich, Theodore Oien, Colin Lawson, Fan Lei, and Richard Faria.