Sarah Crocker

Biography

Harpist, musicologist, and small business owner Dr. Sarah K. Crocker is Adjunct Professor of Harp at Belmont University, joining the School of Music faculty in Fall 2020. A Franklin, TN native, she can now be seen performing, teaching, and lecturing across the United States and abroad. In addition to her position at Belmont University, Dr. Crocker serves as Adjunct Professor of Harp at Lipscomb University and Middle Tennessee State University, where she has served as a member of the Honors College faculty and teaches courses in harp, musicology, and music theory. Dr. Sarah founded Hillnote Music and the Hillnote Harp Academy in 2017 and is the harp faculty at the TN Governor’s School of the Arts. Previous teaching positions include Professor of Musicology and Ethnomusicology at Kentucky Institute for International Studies (Buenos Aires, Argentina) and Instructor of Ethnomusicology and Secondary Harp at The University of Alabama. Sarah has served on the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of the American Harp Society, Inc. as the Regional Director Coordinator and Southern Regional Director, the Editorial Board of The American Harp Journal, and the President (2014-2019), Vice President and Webmaster (2019-present) of the Nashville Chapter of the American Harp Society. 
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Dr. Crocker is principal harp of the Tennessee Philharmonic Orchestra (2013-present) and the North Mississippi Symphony Orchestra (2006-present), where she made her debut as a soloist performing Debussy’s Danses in 2013. Crocker also performs regularly as substitute principal harp with many orchestras and wind ensembles across the Southeast, including the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Kentucky, Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra, Montgomery Symphony Orchestra, Albany Symphony Orchestra (GA), Nashville Wind Ensemble, and she was principal harp of the Meridian Symphony Orchestra (MS) from 2005-2013 until moving to TN. Sarah is also in demand as harpist for numerous regional wind ensembles and concert bands, choirs, churches, and performs and coordinates customized music for events as the Owner of Hillnote Weddings & Events.

Having a love for chamber music, Crocker regularly performs with a variety of musicians and choirs across Middle Tennessee and beyond. Sarah collaborates often as a flute and harp duo with her talented colleagues Dr. Deanna Little at MTSU, Dr. Carolyn Totaro at Belmont, and Madeline Cawley of Harvest Arts LLC, having given recitals and specially curated multi-media concerts at many universities, churches, weddings, and venues like The Electric Belle and the Clubhouse on Highland in Alabama. Sarah regularly performs with her colleagues at the TN Governor's School for the Arts and was featured on Ravel's Introduction and Allegro in 2021. While attending the University of Alabama, Crocker founded the Druid City Ensemble with flutist Dr. Whitney O'Neal and soprano Dr. Dawn Neely. Hailed as "truly inspiring," the ensemble was honored to appear as featured performers at venues and music festivals across the United States from 2010-2020, including the Second Saturday Concert Series at the St. James Chapel in Chicago, National Flute Convention in San Diego, American Harp Society Summer Institute in Winston-Salem, Mid-South and Kentucky Flute Festivals, Southeastern Composers League Forum, and with the Alabama Contemporary Ensemble. As enthusiastic proponents of contemporary music, the group commissioned and premiered seven new works for soprano, flute, and harp.

In addition to teaching and performing, Dr. Crocker sells, rents, and services pedal and lever harps through Hillnote Harps and has a passion for teaching and researching both harp and musicology. Sarah has presented lecture-recitals about her research on harpist-composers Henriette Renié, Alphonse Hasselmans and his family, and Pierre Jamet at the 2017 Music by Women Festival, 2014 & 2016 American Harp Society National Conferences in New Orleans and Atlanta, the University of Alabama, and for the Central Gulf Coast and Nashville Chapters of the American Harp Society 2020 and 2018. Her dissertation “The Descriptive Miniatures of Alphonse Hasselmans and Henriette Renié: An Examination of the Pedagogical and Artistic Significance of Salon Pieces for Harp” was nominated for the Outstanding Dissertation of the Year Award. In addition to Hasselmans and Renié, Crocker’s research interests include music’s intersection with French and German culture, politics, and gender identities in the 19th and 20th centuries and the post-WWI and WII avant-garde movements in Europe and America.

Dr. Crocker holds a B.M., M.M., and D.M.A. in Harp Performance with Musicology cognate from the University of Alabama. She has studied harp with Judith Sullivan-Hicks, Mary Brigid Roman, Katie Buckley, Judy Loman, and Carol McClure. When she is not performing or teaching, Sarah enjoys cooking, gardening, reading, and being outdoors with her dogs, Pippy and Dash.