Sarah is a local singer and songwriter who has been playing piano since the age of three. She performs weekly Thursday nights at 7PM at Jacks Irish Pub inside Palace Station.

I love music, always have. As long as I can remember music has been my voice, and ironically, my most used and cherished vice. My mother's parents were not supportive of extracurricular activities. My mother was required to find her own way of making the pursuit of her personal desires possible. Not only did she do so, but she maintained the ethic to be at the top of everything she did. I think it was this lack of support, and the hard sustained long running drive in her own life that gave me the fire to push mine. When I was younger, my mother told me that I was gifted with a very blessed curse. I am just beginning to understand what that means.

My father is a self supporting artist himself. He has built a company with the help of my mother that produces an instrument he calls the Hardwood Drum. This instrument, played worldwide, was created by my father. Over a matter of years, he has fine tuned this creation to be the best of it's kind. Though many have attempted to duplicate it's quality, it's look and it's voice, no one has ever come close to doing so.

I try to entertain myself with a life separate from my music. Music, having always been the core focus for me, was a feat to escape. We all need to breathe, and I don't deny what's been given to me. But in order to maintain a balance between artistry and reality I have to really put forth the effort. The problem occurs when I plan the escape. Once I ran to Mexico. I went with a group of friends that promised fanatic obliteration, useless pleasures and late nights of drunkenness. Purposefully, I did not pack anything that could encourage any sort of writing, composition or artistry. One night, on that big beach, my stomach full of beer and tequila, my nature tracked me down and cornered me. With eyeliner, the back of a Tecate box, and the voicemail of my cel phone, I locked myself in my truck and wrote. The result being a song I recorded later that month, joined to a work later nominated for the Acoustic Album of the Year. Obviously, the eventual result was positive but I didn't want to spend time w riting music in Mexico. I wanted to camp, be with my friends, vacation from the art and return fresh and unaffected. I could never quite explain the frustration this brings upon me. But if it's between me having art in my life or not, I would undeniably choose art.

By the time I get the feeling to write the music is already here, written almost completely in an accomplishment that seems just ready, perfectly ready to be performed. Most of my music I learn after I write. I believe that my father and I are both being used as outlets for a greater purpose. Though I'm insecure with my beliefs in god, I have no inhibitions about purpose. When you complete your task as a creature on earth, you are no longer necessary. It's not that people are unnecessary. But the departure of one soul may be the fulfillment of another. One person's task on earth is to die but while providing an opportunity for those effected to come closer to accomplishing their own purpose. The most powerful thing I have is what I am. I have to use that, and I have great examples living and breathing directly in my own life. I wouldn't be anything without my family. They taught me the most important thing I know. To learn myself.