Sarah Carrier
American flutist Sarah Carrier has been praised for combining “thoughtful musicality with virtuosity in her alternately energetic and delicate account of a flute line laden with light multiphonics and unusual timbres” [New York Times; Kozinn]. Born in Hokkaido, Japan and raised in Southern California, Sarah moved to New York to pursue contemporary performance and has found herself equally immersed in chamber music and scholarship. Her studies with Robert Dick at New York University and CUNY Graduate Center introduced a world of expressive tone-colors and extended techniques, one which is informed by interpretation that comes not only from one’s "inner-voice" and a desire to break with tradition, but through thoughtful consideration of performance practice established by past generations of legendary flutists.
Some of Sarah’s early performances in New York City as a chamber musician include her work as a member of Syzygy New Music Ensemble, hailed as “one of 2009 most promising groups” [Sequenza21]. With Syzygy, she premiered numerous works by Danielle Eva Schwob and other emerging composers which were later aired on Q2 radio and Manhattan Neighborhood Network. Since 2010, Sarah has been performing with The Parhelion Trio, an all-female flute, clarinet, and piano ensemble that continues to garner acclaim with performances that push the limits of virtuosity through the memorization of challenging chamber music pieces. In 2017, Sarah will perform in a newly commissioned work by Alice Shields, which was awarded a Chamber Music America grant. As a scholar, Sarah is currently working on her dissertation which examines discipline, affect, and embodiment in the flute masterclass. In the spring of 2017, Sarah presented a paper at the GSIM Conference titled: “Disciplining the Masterclass: the Obedience and Disobedience of Musical Bodies in Performance.”
Sarah can be heard on American Variations, an album of works by Sunny Knable (Centaur Records). She is a winner of the National Flute Association Masterclass Competition (2007). Sarah Carrier completed her M.M. in Flute Performance at New York University and earned her B.M. in Flute Performance at the Bob Cole Conservatory at California State University, Long Beach as a student of John Barcellona. Every spring, Sarah presents demonstrations of the flute for participants in the New York Philharmonic's Very Young Composer's Program. In 2015, Sarah was appointed as a lecturer at St. Joseph's College in Brooklyn where she teaches courses in postmodern music and music appreciation.