Teaching philosophy

Sarah believes that technique is the gateway to musical artistry. So often singers are convinced that they aren't "musical" simply because they lack the technical tools to reach their own artistic potential. Regardless of the age, experience, or vocal goals of her students, Sarah has found that through an understanding of basic anatomy and an athletic approach to breathing and support, singers can achieve a wider range of musical choices, a clearer and more methodical path to prepare repertoire, and more independence in their own vocal process.

What has lead you down the path of teaching your musical specialty?

Sarah has always felt incredibly fortunate to have had four wonderful voice teachers during her own vocal process, whose mastery of technique, style and musicality helped her forge her own path as both a singer and a teacher. From her lessons with soprano Jill Levis, her voice teacher as a high school student in Burlington, VT, to her teachers in Boston at the New England Conservatory of Music, and later Bonnie Hamilton, her teacher at the Mannes College of Music in New York City as a graduate student, Sarah learned the criteria that have served her in the practice room, on stage, and as a teacher of classical technique to all ages and abilities.

What inspires you and your teaching techniques?

It is the amazing privilege of voice teachers to be able to hear a singer and immediately recognize the potential of a voice held back by tensions, fear, inexperience or bad habits. Helping her students find a more efficient, natural and easier path to a stronger, clearer and more beautiful tone, is incredibly inspiring to Sarah. The career of a professional singer also requires a long list of skills outside of purely musical or vocal talent. Preparing young singers for the professional career path ahead, with all of its emotional complexities, is also one of Sarah's joys.

Teaching Bio

Teaching was not part of Sarah's original career goals, and has been on of her life's most wonderful surprises! She began teaching while living in Bogota, Colombia. Not having the chance to work with a teacher herself during her decade in South America, Sarah found a way to articulate everything she had learned to help other singers, even while fumbling along in another language! Within a few years of beginning her teacher career, she was invited to design, implement and lead the first voice and opera program at the Universidad Central in Bogota, a program that quickly gained international acclaim as the training program for the country's up and coming professional singers. After returning to Vermont in 2013, she taught for 5 years at UVM, and then co-founded Patchen Music Studios with several other artist-teachers. In 2019 she founded the Youth Opera Workshop of Vermont, a satellite program of MCMC that performs operatic productions with Vermont teens from schools throughout Chittenden, Washington and Addison Counties.

Performance Bio

Sarah has been performing pretty much since she could walk, or perhaps before! From classical ballet to theater, musical theater, art song, oratorio, operetta and finally opera, her relationship to the stage continues and morphs constantly. She is a frequent soloists with orchestras and choral groups, has sung numerous leading roles on opera stages in South America and here in Vermont, and most recently enjoys performing with her husband, Colombian guitarist Daniel Gaviria, in their duo of Latin American and Spanish song called 8 Cuerdas. Connecting with her audience and guiding their emotional journey through the music she sings is Sarah's main goal as a singer and her great joy as a performer.