Sarah's Teaching Biography

Sarah Carmichael is a busy performer and teacher in the Dallas area.  After completing both her undergraduate and master’s degrees in Violin Performance from University of Texas at Austin, Sarah moved to Dallas to pursue her career.  As a performer, Sarah has been a member of the Memphis Symphony, and has performed with many other groups, including the Fort Worth Symphony, the Dallas Opera, the Austin Symphony, and the Honolulu Symphony.  She has shared the stage with Ray Charles, Itzhak Perlman, Van Cliburn, Willie Nelson, Mark O’Connor, Wynona Judd, Rod Stewart, Bernadette Peters, and Nancy Wilson.  Sarah can also be heard on the Soundtrack CD of Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams.  Sarah is currently Assistant Concertmaster of the East Texas and Richardson Symphonies in the Greater Dallas area, and plays an electric violin in a church jazz band called KOGnition. 

 Because of Sarah’s introduction to the violin through the Suzuki method at age 4, it was a natural and easy transition for Sarah to teach young children through the Suzuki method.  Sarah has done Suzuki Teacher Training with Ronda Cole, Barbara Barber, Judy Offman, and Enid Cleary.  However, Sarah’s expertise in teaching is not solely with training young students through the Suzuki method. 

Sarah taught at Texas A&M University at Commerce for two years as the violin, viola, and strings class instructor to college students.  Other college-level experience was as a Teaching Assistant to Vincent Frittelli during her graduate work at UT Austin.  In addition to this experience, Sarah has also taught every level of violin and viola student in the Plano, Frisco, and Allen school systems, and was on faculty at the Suzuki School of Dallas.  Sarah has been a frequent coach and adjudicator for the Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra young people’s orchestras, and has given lectures and masterclasses at Abilene Christian University and in the HEB Suzuki Workshops.

Sarah is thankful to all of the teachers along the way who helped her get to where she is, most notably Emanuel Borok, Vincent Frittelli, and Sonja Foster.  Sarah has studied chamber music and performed in masterclasses for the Cavani Quartet, Midori, Dorothy DeLay, and Lynn Harrell.  In her free time, Sarah has fun watching the Food Network, experimenting with new recipes on her friends and family, and taking her dog Jasper to the dog park.