Sara Holtzschue

Teaches at Brooklyn Conservatory of Music

A New York native, Sara Holtzschue’s career in music began as a classically trained flutist. Sara’s track began changing during her high school and college years which she spent both playing flute and nurturing her budding interest in composition, jazz and American folk music. She graduated with a degree in music with honors from Barnard College at Columbia University, where she studied with David Rakowski, Mario Davidovsky, Jeff Nichols and Harold Jones. Sara’s interest in jazz led her to a master’s degree with honors in Jazz Composition from New England Conservatory of Music. As her great-grandmother did at Oberlin, she adopted voice as the focus of her performance studies while at the Conservatory. She had the opportunity to study both voice and composition with Dominique Eade, John McNeil, Bevan Manson, George Garzone and Jimmy Guiffre. Sara currently performs as a vocalist and composer in the greater New York area at venues such as BAM’s Brooklyn Next Festival and The Cutting Room. Past performances have been in Boston and Rome. She serves as an Assistant Professor at the City University of New York and conducts workshops for the CUNY College Now program. Her shows are eclectic, as her interest lies in performing her original work as well as composing works based on the poetry of such varied writers as Derek Walcott and William Butler Yeats. She is the recipient of numerous awards and scholarships from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the City University of New York Research Foundation, New England Conservatory, The Brooklyn Conservatory, Reed College, Columbia University, Barnard College and, for three consecutive years, the AscaPlus Award for Performance and Composition. She is also a staff writer at www.jazzreview.com. September of 2005 saw Sara as a featured artist on Skyjazz Internet Radio. Sara has performed with and/or had compositions recorded by the Kingsborough Community College Orchestra, Bruce Barth, George Colligan, Michael Kanen, David Berkman, Pete McCann, Dave Ambrosio, Rez Abbasi, Roberta Piket, George Garzone, Andrew Rathbun, Peter Retzlaff, Christian Howes and Taylor Haskins, among others.