Sarah Mellander, oboe/English horn, was born and raised in upstate New York. She received her B.A. in music from Carleton College, where she graduated magna cum laude and with honors in musical performance. Sarah holds her M.M. in oboe performance from the Eastman School of Music, and is currently pursuing her DMA at the University of Colorado, where she recently received honorable mention in the annual Honors Competition.

She is a member of the Arundo Winds, the graduate woodwind quintet in residence at CU, with whom she won the silver medal in the wind division of the 2006 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. She is a member of the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra and the Central City Opera orchestra and performs regularly with the Colorado Symphony and Colorado Springs Philharmonic. Her extensive orchestral experience has also included performances with the Binghamton Philharmonic, Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, numerous college ensembles, and the Rochester Philharmonic Youth Orchestra.

Sarah has been performing with woodwind quintets since she was 13 years old, when she became a member of the Hochstein Memorial Music School’s scholarship woodwind quintet in Rochester, NY. As a soloist, she has performed concerti with the Finger Lakes Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, the Carleton College orchestra, and the CU Boulder Symphony Orchestra. Sarah’s teachers have included Peter Cooper, Richard Killmer, Merilee Klemp, Andreas Lorenz, Laura Griffiths, and Cindy Watson-Sporrel. She also participated in summer festivals at the Brevard Music Center, Round Top, and the National Repertory Orchestra.

When she is not playing oboe or making reeds, Sarah is usually training for triathlons, dancing the lindy hop, or engaging in social justice work with United Ministries in Higher Education.