Photo: Jaunelle Celaire
Music has been
the through line.
Susan Benefield Rice is a mezzo/belter with extensive stage experience in both classical and contemporary styles, a private voice teacher, choral director, stage director, conductor, and arts administrator based in Fairbanks, Alaska.
For nearly three decades, her work has brought together performing, teaching, and the practical work of sustaining arts and educational organizations. Her experience spans professional opera, musical theatre, orchestral and choral concerts, school music programs, and community productions.
A third-generation Fairbanksan, Susan returned to her hometown in 2024. Today, she serves as Executive Director of Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival, teaches private voice, and continues to work onstage, backstage, in the rehearsal room, and everywhere in between!
A voice for different kinds of stories
Susan’s stage roles range from the dark comedy of Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd to Maureen in Rent and Rona Lisa Peretti in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. She performed Mrs. Lovett with TMCC Performing Arts in Reno in 2008, and appeared in Spelling Bee and Rent at Altarena Playhouse in Alameda in 2011 and 2013. She also served as vocal coach for several of the same productions she was cast in, lending valuable expertise to her colleagues. She will appear next as a female version of Scrooge in Romulus Linney’s adaptation of A Christmas Carol with the Fairbanks Drama Association in December 2026.
With Nevada Opera, her roles include Mercedes in Carmen, Venus in Orpheus in the Underworld, Pitti-Sing in The Mikado, and Third Lady in The Magic Flute. Her musical theatre work also includes Crystal in Little Shop of Horrors, for which she was both a performer and Music Director at Brewery Arts Center, as well as Sister Mary Hubert in Nunsensations and Brenda in Smokey Joe’s Cafe.
On the concert stage, Susan has performed as a mezzo-soprano and alto soloist with Toccata Orchestra of Lake Tahoe in Bach’s Mass in B minor, Magnificat, and St. Matthew Passion; Handel’s Messiah; Mendelssohn’s Elijah; and Mozart’s Coronation Mass. Her experience also includes chamber recitals, vocal jazz, and choral performances with orchestras and ensembles in Nevada and California.
Since returning to Fairbanks, she has performed in the Palace Theatre’s Second Saturday Cabaret series and as a soloist in Northland Choral Arts’ Messiah. In December 2026, she will play Scrooge in Fairbanks Drama Association’s upcoming A Christmas Carol, adapted by Romulus Linney.
Portraits along the way
Photo: Jeff Singer
Photo: Joy Strotz Photography, Lake Tahoe
Helping musicians find their footing
Susan’s teaching experience encompasses private voice instruction, choral direction, general music, band, orchestra, and AP Music Theory. She has worked with elementary, middle, and high school students, directed concert, chamber, and show choirs, and prepared young singers for both concert and theatrical performances.
At Nevada Opera, she served as Director of Education and Outreach from 2006 to 2010 and Youth Chorus Director from 2007 to 2010. She developed teaching materials, coordinated school access to opera and outreach performances, and recruited and prepared a youth chorus of more than 20 singers for concerts, children’s operas, and mainstage appearances. Her school teaching career includes music programs in Nevada, Indiana, California, and Alaska, as well as performing arts leadership at Cathedral School for Boys and San Francisco Day School.
Her work with fellow educators includes instructional coaching for SINEM music programs in Costa Rica and guest conducting and lecturing at California State University, Los Angeles. She was named Nevada Music Educator of the Year in 2009 and received the Ormsby County Education Association’s Light in Education Award that same year.
As a director and conductor, Susan works across school, community, and festival productions. Recent credits include producing, stage directing, and music directing FSAF’s Next to Normal in 2026; stage and music direction of the FLOT/FSAF collaboration The Addams Family in 2025; and stage direction and vocal coaching for Mean Girls at Lathrop High School in 2024. Earlier work includes directing Show Boat, The Pajama Game, and The Pirates of Penzance at North High School, and guest directing and choreographing Little Shop of Horrors at Charles Wright Academy.
Leading organizations that support the work
Susan became Executive Director of Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival in March 2025. Her responsibilities include organizational strategy, budgeting, fundraising, and program development across the festival’s artistic disciplines. She brings experience from Nevada Opera, Brewery Arts Center, and the Reno International Jazz Festival, together with broader nonprofit executive leadership as Head of School at Palm Valley School and Charles Wright Academy.
Her board and volunteer service includes Symphony Tacoma’s Board of Directors and Leadership and Governance Committee and the Palm Springs Opera Guild’s Education Committee.
Education & continuing study
Susan holds a Bachelor of Music in Music Education from the University of Nevada, Reno, and a Master of Music in Conducting from California State University, Los Angeles. She earned postgraduate certificates through eCornell in Executive Women in Leadership and Finance for Nonprofit Organizations. She also completed two years of coursework toward an Ed.D. in Organizational Change and Leadership at the University of Southern California.
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