Susan Dorchin

Susan Dorchin
MA, Florida Atlantic University
University Instructor

Areas of Expertise:
Voice/Vocal Rehabilitation
Alexander Technique
Music History

Email: sdorchin@fau.edu
Office Phone: 561.297.1085
Office: AH 223

Her musical career began early singing with the Children's Chorus of the Metropolitan Opera and the Royal Ballet of England. She graduated from the Boston Conservatory of Music where she earned a Bachelor of Music degree and received the Arthur B. Whitney award for highest scholastic honors. She went on to sing with the New England Opera Center and the Light Opera of Manhattan. She sang the theme song on a popular children's television program for WGBH-TV in Boston.

Professor Dorchin had a private voice studio in New York City for twenty years. Her students included professionals engaged in operatic, Broadway, cabaret, jazz, blues, rock n' roll, film, television and voice over careers. Private students studying with her received college credit for their vocal studies at New York University, Hunter College, and Goddard. Before joining the faculty of Florida Atlantic University she taught at Texas Tech University.

In 1996 she was hired as the University's second voice teacher as FAU broadened its musical horizons and expanded the department. She has created new courses for the curriculum which include Introduction to Vocal Pedagogy, Vocal Pedagogy, Graduate Vocal Pedagogy, Survey of Vocal Solo Literature, and Alexander Technique for the Musician.  She earned her Masters of Arts from Florida Atlantic University.  Ms. Dorchin is a certified instructor of the Alexander Technique and did post-graduate work with John Nicholls.

In addition to teaching singing, she specializes in vocal rehabilitation. She has worked extensively and effectively with singers and other voice professionals who have severe vocal problems as a result of faulty technique and bad vocal habits. Ms. Dorchin has developed successful techniques for eliminating vocal nodules. She has treated people suffering from various dysphonias, including those who have lost the capacity for speech as a result of intubation during surgery. Her teaching also extends to people afflicted with asthma, multiple sclerosis, cystic fibrosis, and muscular dystrophy. She has given seminars on vocal health and increasing breath capacity to voice professionals in the Palm Beach area. Her students have won numerous local and national competitions.

She was the writer and host of WXEL's Opera Theater on 90.7 FM radio for eleven years.