Full Bio

Susan Salidor is an award-winning children’s music composer and performer with the heart of a teacher.  She is the author, along with illustrator Natalka Soiko, of two picture books for young children, I’ve Got Peace In My Fingers and One Little Act of Kindness (Sideline Ink Publishing), based on two of her most widely-known original songs.  

Susan has written over 150 songs for children.  Her original music is influenced by her professional experience in musical theatre, cabaret folk and in her work as a preschool music specialist. Her recording Come and Make a Circle 3: Even More Terrific Tunes for Children and Those Who Love Them, is the third in the Circle series. All three Circle albums have received Parents’ Choice awards, and they are among the most popular of Susan’s eight recordings for children.

Susan has also been honored as a songwriter with several ASCAP Popular Awards for Songwriting.  In addition, the song “Color Me Singing,” is featured in a primary school textbook Making Music (Scott Foresman/Silver Burdett).  Susan’s recordings are recommended in The Best of Everything for Your Baby (Krantz/Exley, Prentice Hall), and her song, “Ruby B.,” appears in the first edition of civil rights icon Ruby Bridges’ autobiography Through My Eyes (Scholastic Press).  She has also published The Susan Salidor Songbook, a songbook and CD set of original music from her first four recordings.  For five years Susan co-hosted “Kids Play Radio,” a weekly broadcast on Chicago’s WLUW 88.7 FM.  Her songs have been heard on in-flight kids’ programming on UNITED Airlines, XM Radio, Spotify, Sirius Satellite Radio and are available wherever music is streamed and downloaded.  

Susan’s concert venues include schools, libraries, colleges, theatres, children’s museums, music festivals and bookstores throughout the country.  On the educational front, she teaches preschool music in and around Chicago each weekday throughout the school year, and her music workshops (Sure-Fire Hits for Preschool Teachers, Sure-Fire Hits 2: Just the Songs, and Come and Make a Circle) have received rave reviews at professional teaching conferences nationwide.  She has presented multiple times for the NAEYC conference, which draws 25,000 early childhood educators annually.  Susan has served as an “Artist in Residence” for the Rockford Public Schools’ Early Childhood Program, Waukegan Public Schools and Mary Meyer School (Chicago), teaching music classes and training teachers.  Susan and husband Jay Rehak created a children’s show, Noah’s Ark: The Musical, which has been produced in both Chicago and Michigan.  All of Susan’s recordings are available on Spotify,  Apple iTunes, Amazon.com and CDBaby.com.  Susan and Jay have created dozens of YouTube videos to her songs, but they are most delighted by the hundreds of original videos recorded by fans of Susan’s music found on the internet.  Her song, “I’ve Got Peace in My Fingers,” is included in the songbook Rise Again! compiled by Peter Blood and Annie Patterson (a follow up songbook to Rise Up Singing!).  The song is sung in elementary schools throughout Spain to help celebrate its Day of Non-Violence and Peace each year on January 30th, and it can be heard in school celebrations throughout Canada for its Remembrance Day each November.  

Susan continues to teach and perform online and in-person, as COVID protocols allow, and she is working on her third picture book for children plus a brand new album of songs written during the last decade.