Susie Ibarra

Susie Ibarra (born Anaheim, California, November 15, 1970) is a contemporary composer and percussionist who has worked and recorded with jazz, classical, world, and Indigenous musicians. She is known for her work as a performer in avant-garde, jazz, world and new music. As a composer, Ibarra incorporates diverse styles and influences of Philippine Kulintang, jazz, classical, poetry, musical theater, opera and electronic music. Ibarra remains active as a composer, performer, educator and documentary filmmaker in the U.S., Philippines and internationally. She is interested and involved in works that blend folkloric and indigenous tradition with avant-garde. In 2004, Ibarra began field recording indigenous Philippine music and co-founded in 2009, Song of the Bird King, an organization focusing on preservation of Indigenous music and ecology.

Ibarra was born in Anaheim, California, and raised in Houston, Texas. Her parents Bartolome and Herminia Ibarra are both physicians who immigrated from the Philippines. Ibarra is the youngest of five children. She began playing piano at the age of four. In grade school she sang in church and school choirs and played in a punk rock band in high school. While at Sarah Lawrence College in the late 1980s, Ibarra attended a Sun Ra performance which she has credited with kindling her interest in jazz. She also attended the Mannes College The New School for Music, and Goddard College, where she received her B.A. in Music.

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