Bio
Suzanne Mueller is a native and resident of Long Island (NY). She is a graduate of both the Pre-College and College of The Juilliard School. Her teachers have included Marion Feldman, Alexander Kouguell, Lorne Munroe, Leslie Parnas, Channing Robbins, and Harvey Shapiro, and she has coached with artists including Joseph Fuchs, Margot Garrett, William Lincer, and, for non-classical cello and perspective, Eugene Friesen.
She made her New York recital debut under the auspices of Artists International as a member of the piano/cello Elysian Duo, and went on to perform as half of its successor, Elysian II, for ten years, before forming CROSS ISLAND with pianist Elinor Abrams Zayas in 2007. They primarily perform as a trio with clarinetist Joseph Rutkowski, Jr., but also offer programming as a duo.
Regardless of its configuration, CROSS ISLAND's programming blends familiar favorites with new discoveries, and the group welcomes collaboration with composers. Their 2011 CD, Quiet Strength, a collaboration with clarinetist Joseph Rutkowski, Jr., included works by Roger Blanc, Max Bruch, Keri Degg, Andreas van Haren, Jeffrey Harrington, Mark McCarron, Paul Schoenfield, Rick Sowash, and Meira Warshauer, including some original arrangements.
From 2003 to 2025, Suzanne was Summer Sunday Concerts Artist-in-Residence at Old Westbury Gardens, curating and presenting the Music for a Sunday Afternoon concert series with classical, jazz, and folk colleagues. The series moved in 2026 to The Long Island Museum in Stony Brook.
Beginning in summer, 2023, Suzanne is performing as half of Cambiata Cello Duo, a collaboration with cellist Paul Lawrence Finkesltein which made its debut at Old Westbury Gardens.
More recently, she has been a founding member of Trio Ardiente, a piano trio with clarinetist Joseph Rutkowski and pianist Claudine Joelle Robins, focusing on tangos, bossa nova, and music of passion.
Suzanne is a member of the New Directions Cello Association. For ten years, she was half of the duo McCarron & Mueller, with guitarist/composer Mark McCarron, and also performed as a member of the jazz-inflected pop ensemble supporting his collaboration with Dave Rave. She has also appeared and recorded with singer/songwriter Terry Winchell and performed with Richard Barone at the 1988 Berlin Independence Days Festival as part of his Cool Blue Halo tour.
She has also been recording and performing with the folk duo Hungrytown since 2000.
In 2013, she released her first solo album, Solitaire, featuring a number of premieres, several written especially for her - an outgrowth of her involvement with Composer's Voice, which facilitates collaboration between performers and composers. Composers represented on the album are J.S. Bach, Barbara Bach Sternberg, Greg Bartholomew, Bela Bartok, Douglas DaSilva, Lawrence Kramer, Nicholas Chen McConnell, Jimmy Pigott, J.P. Redmond, Bettie Ross, Rick Sowash, David Wolfson, and Carol Worthey, from whom Suzanne commissioned the album's title track, a set of variations.
She can also be heard on the CDs: Hungrytown - Circus for Sale; The McCarron Brothers (& Sister) - Before All This (2023); Terry Winchell—Vice Versa
(2021;Hungrytown - Further West (2015); CROSS ISLAND - Quiet Strength (2011); CROSS ISLAND—Explorations, Robin Eve—Remembrance (2010); Hungrytown (self-titled album) - 2008; and Dave Rave and Mark McCarron—the Grammy-nominated In the Blue of My Dreams (2007); Lauren Agnelli—Love Always Follows Me (2004); and Rebecca Hall—Sunday Afternoon (2002).
