Song of Triumph

“My parents told me that I still needed to sit at the piano every day, even if I didn’t want to play. I was bored and started fooling around with the keys. That’s when I realized I could create my own melodies instead of the ones the piano teacher gave me.

But it’s not like I hear complete melodies in my head,” she explains about her composing process. “I feel a strong pull of emotion and know something needs to come out, so I go and sit at the piano and play around until I find it. I start putting things together until I realize, ‘Oh, there it is.’ ”

Because every song she composes comes straight from her heart, Sarah considers the piano to be her diary. It took her years to release her first album, Finding Forever, a collection of songs she wrote in high school, because they felt so personal. Publicizing them made Sarah feel vulnerable.

She eventually did release them, having top-talent pianists play the melodies on the recording. Why use others? “I consider myself more of a composer than a pianist,” she says. “I compose songs that are more complex than what I myself can play.”