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Sara Schoenbeck

The Wire magazine places Sara Schoenbeck in the "tiny club of bassoon pioneers" at work in contemporary music today and the New York Times has called her performances "galvanizing" and "riveting, mixing textural experiments with a big, confident sound.”

About Me

The Wire magazine places Sara Schoenbeck in the “tiny club of bassoon pioneers” at work in contemporary music today and the New York Times has called her performances “galvanizing” and “riveting, mixing textural experiments with a big, confident sound.”

Sara promotes the bassoon as a colorful and flexible voice in both her own work and in collaboration as an improviser, interpreter and composer. She has been a member of a number of music ensembles including Anthony Braxton’s 12+1(tet) and the Tri-Centric Orchestra, Wayne Horvitz’s Gravitas Quartet with Ron Miles and Peggy Lee, the Nels Cline Lovers Orchestra, Wavefield Ensemble, Petr Kotek’s SEM ensemble, Dana Lyn’s Mother Octopus, Michael Bates’ Acrobat and the Ghost Train Orchestra. Sara has performed regularly with many inspiring artists and ensembles including Henry Threadgill, Roscoe Mitchell, Satoko Fujii, Butch Morris, Wadada Leo Smith, Matt Mitchell, Marty Ehrlich, Johnny Reinhard, the International Contemporary Ensemble, Wet Ink, the Michael Leonhart Orchestra, Adam Rudolph’s Go Organic Orchestra and Brooklyn Raga Massive, Eve Risser’s White Desert Orchestra, Dakah Hip Hop Orchestra, Vinny Golia’s Large Ensemble and Harris Eisenstadt's Golden State. Sara can be heard on dozens of music and film recordings including The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, Spanglish and Dahmer, and on the Tzadik, Pi and Blue Note Record labels. In the fall of 2021, Sara released her self-titled debut album to critical acclaim on Pyroclastic Records, featuring nine duos with different partners; Roscoe Mitchell, Nels Cline, Robin Holcomb, Nicole Mitchell, Mark Dresser, ​Harris Eisenstadt, Matt Mitchell, Peggy Lee and Wayne Horvitz. The album was recorded in seven different locations across North America and appeared on numerous critics’ best-of-year lists.

She has performed at major venues throughout North America and Europe, including: Free Music Festival (Antwerp, Belgium), Biennale Musica (Venice, Italy), Berlin Jazz Festival, Jazz Em Agosto (Lisbon, Portugal), ZomerJazzFiets Tour (Amsterdam, Holland), Newport Jazz Festival, New Orleans Jazz Festival, SXSW, EarShot Jazz Festival in Seattle, Victoriaville, Edgefest (Ann Arbor), Ottawa Jazz Festival, Vancouver International Jazz Festival, Angel City Jazz Festival (Los Angeles), San Francisco Jazz Festival, Saalfelden Festival (Austria), Tampere Jazz Festival (Finland), Winter Jazz Fest (NYC), American Festival of Microtonal Music, Micro Fest (Los Angeles), BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn, Vision Fest (NYC), Big Ears (Knoxeville), Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Birdland, the Kitchen, Iridium, Disney Hall, Redcat, and the Kennedy Center.

Sara received her BFA from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. She is currently on faculty at Brooklyn Conservatory of Music and adjunct faculty at Brooklyn College. She has been adjunct faculty at California Institute of the Arts and Citrus College and has given masterclasses on improvisation for bassoonists at Amherst College, Hampshire College, Cornish College, University of Denver, Western Washington University and Sacramento State University.