Susan Dyer

Susan "Daisy" Hart Dyer ( – ) was an American composer, musician, poet, and music educator. Her best known work is the "Florida Night Song", the second movement from her An Outlandish Suite for violin and piano.

Life and career Susan Dyer was born on in Annapolis, Maryland, the daughter of US Navy Commodore George Leland Dyer and suffragist Susan Hart Palmer Dyer. Her schooling was frequently interrupted for trips abroad accompanying her parents to George Dyer's various naval, diplomatic, and political posts. She kept a diary of her time in Madrid in 1897-1898 when her father was posted there as a naval attaché. When her father was Governor of Guam from 1904 to 1905, she worked in Guam as a school teacher.

Dyer studied at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C., from 1893 to 1895 and at the Art Students League of New York in 1896. However, music would be the focus of the rest of her education. The next year she began studying at the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore, Maryland, under J. C. van Hulsteyn and Otis B. Bois. She graduated with a teaching certificate in violin in 1902.

In 1909, Dyer began her long association with Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, which lasted (with two interruptions) until 1922. She began as an instructor of violin, then on her return in 1914 began to also teach harmony, music theory, and musical history. In 1916 she became Director of the Rollins College Conservatory of Music.

Ain't it a Sin to Steal on a Sunday? (Negro Song) Florida Night Song (Chuck-Will's widow) Chicken Dance (SeminoIe Indian Tune) Panhandle Tune (Texas Cowboy Song) Hula-Hula (Hawaiian Dance)

Violinist Jascha Heifetz performed the second movement , "Florida Night Song", at Carnegie Hall and recorded it for Decca Records.

Legacy The Dyer Memorial Music Building at Rollins College was named for her. Designed by Kiehnel and Elliott, it was dedicated in 1940. It was renamed the Faculty Club around the 1970s.