The American mezzo-soprano and voice teacher, Sarah Hamilton, grew up in the Shenandoah Valley, falling in love with singing while performing with the Shenandoah Valley Children’s Choir and in musical productions at Harrisonburg High School. She obtained he Bachelor of Arts degree in Music Performance from Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania (2008-2012), where she was a part of the elite choir, multiple opera scenes, and was a soloist for the Choral Arts Society performance of the Oratorio King David. She obtained her Master of Music degeee in Vocal Pedagogy from Shenandoah Conservatory in Winchester, Virginia (2012-2014), where she played Dorothée in Cendrillon. She has also studied at the CCM Vocal Pedagogy Institute, becoming one of the few private teachers in the area trained to teach contemporary commercial styles.
After graduating, Sarah Hamilton moved back to Harrisonburg and in August 2014, opened her own Hamilton Voice Studio, training nearly two hundred singers in both classical and contemporary voice. Her students have played leading roles in local musical productions and have gone on to study performance and musical theater at schools like the University of South Carolina and the University of Michigan. She has also invested deeply in the local arts community, serving for three years on the board of the Shenandoah Valley Children’s Choir and serving now as director of communications for the Virginia chapter of the National Association of Teachers of Singing. She continues to perform annually at the Mennonite community sing-along of George Frideric Handel’s Messiah as the alto soloist. |