Once upon a time, there was just a boom box and two microphones. This humble beginning sparked a decade’s worth of performances for the San Diego Symphony Orchestra’s Associate Principal Bassist Susan Wulff. Years before she made her way to the Jacobs Music Center stage, Susan was already a veteran performer, playing in her traveling family band (performing alongside her brother and two sisters), said band inevitably being named “The Wulff Pac”. The Wulff Pac toured from crowded camp grounds to jam-packed festivals throughout California with a variety show in which Susan played the bass. Susan’s mother would run the sound boards while her father acted as the group’s roadie, loading up equipment and packing everyone into their big truck to get them to their next show.
Susan’s life was her band. The Wulff Pac practiced up to five hours a week and played six to eight shows each month – not an easy feat amidst the traveling, keeping up with school work and taking dance lessons. The band quickly rose to fame and even filmed a few music videos, some of which are still aired on television to this day.
“Disaster” struck when Susan’s older sister left The Wulff Pac to elope – the band was on the fritz. As the dust eventually began to settle, something magical happened. At the age of 16, Susan was presented with the opportunity to learn how to play the upright bass after winning free lessons. While Susan never planned on becoming a classical musician, a love affair began – a love affair that would ultimately lead to Susan’s success as the Associate Principal Bassist of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra.
While still in high school, Susan auditioned for the orchestra at California State University, Sacramento. It was not the audition that Susan had envisioned; no standing ovations or seas of applause. However, there was something that stood out about Susan to the judges, and the decision was made to give her a spot in the orchestra. The improvement that Susan displayed in her first year with the CSU Sacramento Orchestra was said to be the most progress in a musician they had ever seen.
Still performing a balancing act in her own life, she would rush from her jazz practices to her orchestra practices. She lived in the music and continued to flourish. Choosing music to be her life, she is now living out those dreams with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra. And the rest is history…
Except for The Wulff Pac. We still like when Susan tells that story—and shares pictures!
FUN FACT: During her Wulff Pac days, Wulff was also pursuing her love for dance. While at the dance studio one day, famous sculpture Richard MacDonald waltzed in and requested that she and her sisters model for a new sculpture series he was creating. Susan and her sisters graciously obliged. Wulff’s performer spirit was literally set in stone. (Susan continues to dance when she isn’t playing the bass.)
