BLOCH, Suzanne

Suzanne Bloch was a Swiss-born American musician, teacher, and a leading 20th-century pioneer of the early music revival. Born in Geneva, Switzerland, she was the daughter of the renowned composer Ernest Bloch and moved with her family to New York in 1916. She pursued her musical studies in Paris with the legendary Nadia Boulanger in 1925, and later continued her education in Berlin and England.
Her career took a definitive turn after she fell in love with the lute in Paris and subsequently studied with early music pioneer Arnold Dolmetsch in England in 1933. She became one of the first prominent modern lutenists, launching her concert career at the 1935 Dolmetsch Festival and making her American debut at Carnegie Hall in 1936. She frequently performed unamplified on historical instruments like the lute, recorder, and virginal, often while dressed in Renaissance costume. In her personal life, she married mathematician Paul Althaus Smith in 1935 and raised two sons, Anthony and Matthew.
In the 1950s, repetitive stress syndrome from playing Hermann Hauser lutes ended her lutenist career, leading her to transition to early keyboards and singing. Bloch became a deeply influential educator, teaching Renaissance music and instruments at the Juilliard School from 1942 until 1985. She also co-founded the Lute Society of America in the 1970s and served as its president from 1974 to 1977. Alongside her educational career, she was a leading authority on her father's music, founding the Ernest Bloch Society in 1967 to promote his legacy. Notably, her passion for chamber music even led her to play occasionally with prominent scientists, including Albert Einstein.