Sarah Hughes is a saxophonist, music educator, poet, and visual artist from Pasadena, Maryland. She recently moved from Washington DC to Rochester, NY.
Hughes graduated from the New England Conservatory in 2015 with a master’s degree in Jazz Saxophone Performance. She took lessons there with Jerry Bergonzi, Ran Blake, Donny McCaslin, and Anthony Coleman. After graduating, Sarah returned to Maryland and moved to Baltimore where she freelanced and taught music at Towson University, McDaniel College, Music & Arts Center, The International School of Music, and Prince George’s County Public Schools. While freelancing, Hughes led and was part of several projects that recorded and performed around DC, Maryland, Virginia, New York City, and beyond, including bands Coy Fish, ZARA, Janel Leppin’s Ensemble Volcanic Ash, and Steve Arnold’s Sea Change. Her work earned her a place on a few Top 5 lists for DC’s best jazz albums and best rising saxophonist award. In addition to her music, Sarah’s visual art brought her to an interdisciplinary art residency in Zalaegerzeg, Hungary and paid rent for at least two months.
Prior to attending NEC, Hughes earned a bachelor’s degree in Music Eduction from the University of Maryland in 2008. She taught elementary band and strings in Prince George’s County for 5 years while cutting her teeth in Brad Linde’s Bohemian Cavern’s Jazz Orchestra and the Brad Linde Ensemble, where she performed a variety of classic jazz repertoire including the works of Gil Evans, Duke Ellington, Stan Kenton, Charles Mingus, and Teddy Charles. Thanks to those ensembles, Hughes shared the stage with Jazz legend, Lee Konitz, while she was still just a novice. During this nascent period, she had several lessons with Konitz while also making weekly pilgrimages to New York to attend Barry Harris’s bebop workshops. After returning from NEC and Hungary, Sarah spent another two years with Price George’s County public schools, having the opportunity to utilize new perspectives on improvised music and art in the band room.
Hughes’ work is repeatedly described as both visionary and creative. From her time at NEC to the present she has been on the rebellion wagon, pushing for an original sound to play to an audience that likes things and sounds to resemble the successful ones that have already happened. Ignoring genre to a fault, Hughes’ own projects gravitate with lo-fi recordings and hi-fi live and improvised acoustic sound. She believes that as long as musicians play the game of capitalists, the world will continue to vibrate in the key of greed, however, she hasn’t figured out a way around that just yet— aside from making music in private only.
While Hughes might sound confident and even arrogant, in actuality she is humble, to the point of quitting. Two thefts, robbing her of a vintage Mark VI, along with her remaining original YAS-23 alto saxophone and her first soprano saxophone have admittedly put a damper on her spirit, not to mention dealing with the long term effects of COVID. Still, Hughes searches for authentic self-expression, something worthy of sharing with the music and art community.