An Electric Woman

December 2011

As a teenager, Sarah — a classical violinist since the age of four — attended a music festival. Mark Wood was there, giving a workshop on how the violin could be used as an electric instrument—demonstrating on instruments he had designed. “From then on I was hooked,” she recalls. Mark crafted an electric violin for Sarah — a hot pink, glittery number in the Viper style — and she’s been playing it ever since. “He gave me a brand and an image to work with. I wanted the violin to be feminine but I also wanted it to scream female power in its own way. It’s got that whole vibe. It’s pink, yet it has a powerful edge to it that I love.”

When she comes out on stage, many audiences don’t know what to think. “It’s about as far away from a violin as you can get, and in many ways it looks more like an electric guitar than anything else. Jaws drop. It has shock value. That’s the kind of reaction I want.”

Classically trained as a violinist, she was a graduate of the New England Conservatory Preparatory School and received a Bachelor of Music in Performance from the University of Michigan. Sarah has performed at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center and has been featured on the "Today Show" and NPR. But she has been making waves soloing around the world with her pink Viper. She’s played at fashion shows, accompanied DJs at clubs, and played the National Anthem and Time Out Show for the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden. “It was an out of body experience. I had never played solo for that many people before,” Sarah confesses.

In her early 20’s, Sarah has achieved so much. Her drive comes from her father, she explains. “He’s a pianist but not by profession—he practiced with me every night from age 4 to 18. He taught me how to work hard. He instilled in me that if you want to do anything in life you put 110 percent into it.” Both of her parents encouraged her and shared her love for the violin. “It’s such a versatile instrument — innately a classical instrument but you can turn it around and make it something totally different.”

She still plays the works of Bach and Beethoven to keep up her technique — but she wanted to do something different—to make her instrument more contemporary. “I wanted to improvise and bring the violin into a more popular music genre.” She would listen to rock songs and come up with ways to add to them. “There’s a new playing field for the violin—DJ’s are playing more instrumental music,” she says. “I love getting up and improvising. Eventually I started producing my own music.”

Sarah believes in exciting young people to music and started a string program at a New York school. Hired by a non-profit, she taught the violin to first and second graders. “It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but the most rewarding,” she affirms. Some of the classes included showing the kids videos of herself playing the violin on YouTube. “We would all jam out to my songs. They loved the class, and it made their days better.” 

As for her biggest accomplishment: “Being able to survive as a musician in New York. You don’t know when your next paycheck is coming or where your next opportunity will be. As scary as that is, it’s also what’s exciting about it. No two days are ever the same.”

More about Sarah at her website.

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