Music is the Key

 

General Music Background

Sarah became interested in Music at a very young age. Her mother taught piano at home when Sarah was little and one day when she was about 4, Sarah pulled her mother into the living room, sat her on the couch and exclaimed that she was going to give her a recital. Sarah then went on by pretending to be each one of her moms piano students by name and then sat down and played each of their recital pieces by ear.

A couple of years later after Sarah had been learning the piano for awhile, one day, Sarah's mom came home and the babysitter said, "you have got to see what Sarah can do! Did you know about this?" She then sat down at the piano and played a note and said to Sarah (across the room) "Sarah, what note did I just play?" and Sarah would tell her exactly what note she had played, without looking. Thus became the realization that Sarah had the gift of perfect pitch.

From that point on (well, after the short-lived dream of becoming an "astronaut") Sarah dreamed of being a concert pianist. In the future she also tried a few years of violin lessons but quit that because she was scared of her teacher. She also tried the percussion and the oboe for a bit in 6th and 7th grade but eventually learned that she enjoyed the flute more.

She played the flute in band all through high school and also sang in the high school choir. She participated in many school music competitions and also had a few solo parts.

Sarah went on to become a student at Snow College where she majored in Music. She loved filling every spare moment of the day with music classes and loved learning about Music History, Aural Skills and loved playing in multiple ensembles.

She then continued on to Utah State University where she even took a class about Music Therapy but after a semester decided that although it was very interesting it was not really what she wanted to do. She is now a flute performance major working to finish her bachelors of arts degree.

Now Sarah loves playing the piano as well as loves to play her flute and on occasion she likes to sing (but when it comes to singing, she only likes to sing in groups. She is more of an instrumentalist.)

Sarah would some day like to play the piano or the flute at weddings. She also dreams of playing the flute in the Orchestra at Temple Square.

 

Piano Background

Sarah started playing the piano when she was 3 or 4 years old. Her mom put her in piano lessons when she was about 5 years old and she continued to take piano lessons for 15 years.

Her mother never had to remind her to practice the piano because playing the piano was her favorite thing to do and she could (and would) play the piano for hours every day.

She has always been very good at playing in front of people and very rarely gets nervous doing so (which seems a little backward from what is normal because she has never liked speaking in public and she always gets nervous about that but not when playing music.)

She competed in the "solo and ensemble" competitions each year of high school and always received superior ratings. She has been performing in recitals all her life and also plays musical numbers in church fairly often.

As she started getting older she also began accompanying people. She played the piano every Sunday in Young Womens when she was a teenager. She has accompanied many instrumentalist and vocalists on their recital pieces in college and has also been the relief society pianist, ward pianist and primary pianist in various LDS wards. One of her favorite things to do now is accompany her husband while he sings (side note: her husband has an AMAZING voice and her mother used to tell him that he should be singing on Broadway. He also won "the most preferred man" competition in high school... by singing.)

Sarah also enjoys writing piano music on occasion and has written songs for her music theory classes, for her husband for Christmas and most recently wrote a song for her sisters birthday.

Sarah continues to love the piano as much today as she did when she was 3 and she loves to sit down and play whenever she has a spare moment. Playing the piano is her favorite thing to do when she has had a stressful day and needs something to help her relax.

 

Flute Background

Sarah started playing the flute when she was in 7th grade. She was one of the top flute players all through school as well as section leader for quite a few years. She competed in Solo and Ensemble competitions all through high school and recieved several superior ratings. She was also chosen to take part in several honor bands all throughout grade school.

Sarah started taking private flute lessons when she was in high school and continued taking flute lessons for 6 years from Dr. Elaine Jorgensen, who is considered to be the top flutist in Utah.

Sarah majored in music at Snow College (which was named the top junior college in the nation for music) where she spent every spare second in the music building playing her flute. While there she auditioned on both the flute and piccolo to be in the Wind Symphony and also the Symphony Orchestra which are the top large ensembles, and she participated in them for 3 years. She also played the flute and piccolo in the pit orchestra for the musical "The Fantastics".

She played the flute in a woodwind quintet her first year at Snow and also played in the flute choir all 3 years. She was part of a flute quintet consisting of the top 5 flutist at Snow College. The flute quintet, which they named "Flutissimo", quickly became the top of the small performing ensembles that year.

Sarah had the opportunity to go on tour with the Snow College Music Department to New York her second year there and also got to go on tour with her flute quintet to Northern Italy during her third year. While on tour they performed several different concerts and also got to have master classes with various flute teachers in both New York and Italy.

Sarah participated in the Summer Flute Fest two years in a row in which she had the opportunity to have master classes with Dr. Brad Garner, the flute teacher from Julliard School of Music.

Sarah competed in the Snow College concerto competition her second and third years there, on the piccolo the second year and on the flute the third year. She was also chosen to participate in the intercollegiate honor band.

She also had the opportunity to teach flute lessons at The Horne School of Music while at Snow College.
She had several solos in all of the performing ensembles and played in multiple recitals each semester.
Sarah loves performing on the flute and has played several musical numbers in church as well as solos in "Friday Forum" at the Ephraim LDS Institute.