About
Sarah holds her Bachelor of Arts in Music with a concentration in Piano Performance from Stanford University.
She has served as accompanist for the Stanford Flute Ensemble and has performed in numerous conventions, honor recitals, and competitions, including the Sacramento State University Valencia Piano Competition (1st place), University of Pacific Zeiter Piano Competition (2nd place), and 2nd Annual Young Artists Mozart Competition (Winner).
She has also taught at the Albany Music School and volunteered through CoachArt to teach students impacted by disabilities and illness. Sarah loves teaching piano ever since her first student in 2003 and has over ten years of teaching experience.
Teaching Philosophy
- My goal as a teacher is to enable students to become fluent and versatile pianists who develop a lifelong love for music. We work on multiple faces of musicianship: technique, sight reading, rhythm, theory, performance, and listening. I have created a Well-rounded Pianist studio award series that helps students track their progress in each area.
- I believe students learn best when fully engaged. In my lessons I use an interactive approach that prioritizes hands-on learning, and exploration. I also draw from a collection of games for all levels that reinforce musical concepts, note-reading and listening.
- I teach from a primarily classical approach with a mix of any other style the student enjoys. Classical music (referring generally to music from the Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and 20th century eras) was written over a span of great artistic creativity and virtuosity, and encompasses some of the most brilliant and technically advanced repertoire written for the piano. We study music from these eras to build the student’s technique gradually while exposing them to excellent works that showcase the piano as an instrument. I also understand that music is fun when it is familiar and relevant, so my students also enjoy playing tunes from movies and video games, new age style music and pop songs.
- I believe in the importance of listening to music. Much like learning a language, we can speak the language much better if we know how it should sound. Listen to pieces that you want to play. Listen to multiple interpretations of the same piece by different performers. The more that students, especially young children, can be immersed in a musical home culture, the more advantage they have in developing musical instinct. Classical music used to be used extensively in cartoons, and now is infrequently heard. If you or your child wishes to excel in music, play it in the car, play it during naptime, watch Youtube performances, stream it on your favorite station, go to concerts! As a structured supplement, I have developed a set of Listening Sheets which recommends a range of piano and orchestral repertoire from influential composers, both classical and beyond.