Dr. Susan Boettger is the founder and executive director of the Junior Chamber Music program.  Through her leadership, JCM has received recognition from the New York Concert Review for its performance at Carnegie Weill Recital Hall, and has performed on KUSC's Sundays Live.  JCM has also performed at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, as well as St. Petersburg and Estonia.  Last season, two JCM groups were semi-finalists in the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. 

Dr. Boettger is also the Director of the Keyboard Department at Irvine Valley College and the Artistic Director of the IVC Keyboard Series.  She has been very active as a performer, both as a soloist and as a chamber musician. She was a winner of the Juilliard Contemporary Concerto competitions, which resulted in being selected to premiere solo works for the New Juilliard Ensemble at Lincoln Center. 

She has performed concertos with the Ventura Symphony, Conejo Symphony (now New West Symphony), Peninsula Symphony, Pasadena Symphony, and the Orange County Chamber Orchestra.  At Juilliard, she was a prizewinner in the Contemporary Concerto competition and premiered new solo piano works for the New Juilliard Ensemble. 

She has also premiered and composed works for chamber music, recording her CD "Edge" with the Classical Edge Trio.  Dr. Boettger's private  students have been prize winners in major competitions such as the Virginia Waring International Piano Competition, the Minnesota International e-Competition, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Spotlight Award, and the Young Arts Foundation. 

Dr. Boettger received her DMA in piano performance at USC, minoring in business and music education.  She received her MM from Juilliard and her BM (piano) and BA (mathematics) from Rice University.