Guiding the choir
Susan Klebanow, a professor of music and director of choral activities, has played a significant role in some of the University’s most ambitious musical performances.
Growing up in New England with a strong mother who wanted her children to succeed, Susan Klebanow said, taught her not to expect problems with being a woman.
And in her 33-year career of teaching and performing in Carolina’s music department, Klebanow said that she never felt out of place. “I was never the only woman anywhere,” she said.
While at Carolina, she met and married violinist and fellow music faculty member Richard Luby, who died in 2013. In 1990, shortly after giving birth to their son, Nicholas, she asked department chair Ann Woodward about changing an evening teaching assignment to daytime.
“She couldn’t have been more accommodating,” Klebanow said. “I have felt supported here, and over the years the music department has hired many more women faculty. It’s healthy and important to have more women on committees expressing opinions about things. It changes the dialogue in a positive direction.”
As conductor of the two student groups, the Carolina Choir and the Chamber Singers, Klebanow played a significant role in some of the University’s most ambitious musical performances. One highlight was conducting the Carolina Choir in Stravinsky’s “Les Noces,” a work described as radical and original, which she said let her know that her choirs at Carolina could take on anything.
“I treat men and the women the same in all ways vocally and musically,” she said. “But I also teach conducting and often I have a class of only women. Then we focus on women in leadership. They get very good very fast, and my guess is that the confidence they gain and the skills they learn in conducting class about leading will apply to many aspects of their lives as they mature.”
