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B. J. SuterVariety: Bluegrass, Folk, Instrumental, Old-TimeSolo Performer, Instrumentalist, Songwriter / Composer |
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P.O. Box 7052
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B.J. has been a musician all her life, and studied music in college. She plays piano, guitar, banjo, and mandolin beautifully. She has the knack of picking up anything with strings and being able to play it immediately!
Her first musical memory that of knocking out her front tooth on middle C of the family piano at age four. Probably her most "smashing" musical accomplishment to date. Obviously the lure of the black and white ivories was stonger than the pain of loosing that tooth, because she kept climbing up on that piano bench to make what she thought was music. When she turned five, her parents decided (out of self-defense, she says) it was probably a good idea for her to learn how to play the piano in a more traditional style and started her on lessons along with her two older brothers. She stuck with it — they didn't. Piano lessons waned a couple years later when they moved to another town, but she was perfectly happy to continue to play by ear and attempt to replicate songs from the radio, tv, and recordings.
Along came flute, violin, sousaphone and tenor drum in marching/concert band and orchestra during junior and high school along with stints in chorus and stage musicals.
The first musical "awards" she remembers winning was a first for a 6-voice ensemble at the state music competition in high school and being awarded "Most Valuable Musician" her senior year. She also picked up the guitar around this time and had more fun with it than any of the other instruments combined... much easier to carry around and sing with.
On to college from there resulting in a BA with a major in music and minors in art and German (don't ask her to speak Deutsch! It's been too long.)
After college she spent a few years in Miami, Florida, singing and playing guitar and flute in an acoustic vocal trio whose fame never extended much past the city limits, but paid the rent and put food on the table.
Since that time she's done some solo gigs and have been in another small acoustic band or two for the fun of it. Eventually, she picked up the banjo — a life long dream — and started writing songs.
Recent performance highlights include placing second in the Telluride Band Competition with a 3-piece pick-up band, being a finalist in the Telluride Troubadour Competition, and being selected for the International Bluegrass Music Association's Songwriter Showcase at its annual "World of Bluegrass" convention in Nashville.
Additional musical endeavors include being President of the 
Colorado Bluegrass Music
Society 
(CBMS) for seven years and producing five compilation CDs for CBMS that
feature a number of its member bands.
Currently she's been peforming less and spending more time composing
— the highlight of which was putting the music to three of
Sandy Reay 
's
song lyrics and recording them with her for her recently released CD
"I Wanted
to Fly". BJ said, "For me, writing the music is the best
part of creating a song, so to have the opportunity to work with a great
lyricist like San is a dream come true!"
Two of her instrumental compositions are on two of the CBMS Compilation
CDs—one co-written with Bill Farmer. A song she co-wrote with
Sandy Reay is on another CBMS Compilation CD. The songs she co-wrote with Sandy
are featured on Colorado
Sandstorm Music Publishing 
.
One song, State
Line Cafe, has been aired on KOLT and KVMR.
She is a founding member of the bands Still Lookin' and WhoYaSay?
|
 with Shadow Mountain String Band: Bill, Sandy, Mike, Ron, B.J. Jan. 2008, Victorian Dance Caribbean Cruise, Carnival Conquest |
 Red Molly with Michi Regier,
Sandy Reay,
and Bill Farmer at Swallow Hill Folk Festival, August, 2005(Article from "The Hub"; Note: band is incorrectly identified in the photo caption.) |
 BJ (4th from right), Bill Donaldson (far right), other volunteers at the
Colorado Bluegrass Music
Society Jamboree and Pie Social, Swallow Hill |
 Still Lookin' at Swallow Hill Folk-a-Thon |
