Through her husband’s battle for his life, composer Sarah Dukes sings of faith and courage
“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.”
Her most recent release, “Triumph,” was in October, but Sarah actually composed it years before. Three years ago, her daughter had respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a dangerous virus that affects toddlers. At just one-and-a-half years old, the Dukes’ daughter was intubated.
“During her long recovery, I started writing this piece, reflecting on how she pulled through the scary time. It made me think of what we went through as a family and how we were all triumphant. Then I thought about how everyone is going through something and we’re all triumphant in our own ways by doing the best we can. The melody turned into a piece acknowledging the power within all of us.”
Because the song felt so powerful, Sarah wanted a full orchestra and not piano alone to play it. Mendy Hershkowitz, a family friend and music producer, took the two-and-half year project on.
“Patience is part of the process with my music. I’d come to him with comments like, ‘Add a half-second pause between those two notes.’ I can feel the spaces between notes and those are part of the composition as well.”
“Triumph” is a song of courage, perseverance, and victory. Back then, Sarah had no idea how true the message would ring — or how much her family would be tested again.
