Susan Follows, Principal Trombone

What is the favourite kind of music for SSO principal trombone Susan Follows? (a) brass, (b) brass, or (c) brass?
You guessed it. Susan’s professional career has been filled with brass since s took up the trombone in grade 9 at Central Secondary School in Stratford. Her love for music, though, began earlier, around age 10, when she was in the choir at St. John’s Church. She also took piano lessons.
Post-high school, she earned an Honours Bachelor of Music degree from Western Ontario University and a Bachelor of Education from the University of Toronto.
She spent several years in Germany, where she taught brass and founded and developed three brass choirs. After that she taught secondary school music for the Waterloo Region District School Board for 25 years.
She is now retired from teaching but still going full tilt with music activity. She plays with Brassroots, Full Brass Quintet, Wellington Winds Symphony and Windjammers. She is conductor for the Ebytown Brass and a teacher at Laurier University’s Beckett School of Music. (For information about Susan’s gigs and freelance availability, contact her at followssusan@gmail.com).

And she plays in the SSO. “I’m very proud to play in the SSO,” she says, “since it’s my hometown.”
She’s made several CDs, including five with Brassroots (Christmas in Bras Snow Has Fallen, Divertimento, Cocktails, Passion for Brass) and one with Slide by Slide (Between Friends) and she appeared on Mr. Dressup with the Festival Brass.
In the past, she has played with London Symphony, Eclectic Brass Quintet and Festival Brass trio, North York Symphony, Trio con Brio (Germany), Slide by Slide Trombone Quartet, and Stratford Shakespearean Festival orchestra and fanfares.
During her stint with the Stratford Festival, she met and later (1988) married well-known actor Ted Follows. (Actress Megan Follows is one of his four children by a first marriage.) Ted Follows died in 201
Susan, who lives in Kitchener, spends her spare time hiking, cooking and practicing. In addition to the trombone, she plays bass trombone, euphonium and piano.

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