Susanne Ortner is a New Orleans based German clarinetist, saxophonist, and composer equally conversant in jazz, classical music, and various ethnic musics.The German Newspaper Augsburger Allgemeine states that she is “a musician par excellence, capable of moving you deeply“.

Her desire to find the similar in the different has lead to the exploration of a myriad of musical traditions, as well as to collaborations and international concert tours with numerous outstanding musicians – mostly in the intimate duo or trio format - such as the Susanne Ortner Trio with Nahum Zdybel (guitar), and James Singleton (bass), Belgium Gypsy icon Tcha Limberger, accordionist/pianist Alan Bern, 1. Concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonics Noah Bendix-Balgley, multi-instrumentalist Vince Giordano, pianist Tom Roberts and many others.

She is the subject of the book “Living the Dream” – Für die Musik nach Amerika” (Wissner Verlag Augsburg, 2011), written by German Television journalist Helge Fuhst.