Sarah Chandler
Second Clarinet
Clarinetist Sarah Chandler has had an extensive career as an orchestral and chamber musician and instructor. She was Lecturer of Clarinet at Binghamton University for six years and currently teaches at Opus Ithaca. She holds a Bachelor of Music from Northwestern University and a Master of Arts from the University of Iowa, where her clarinet teachers included Russell Dagon, Robert Marcellus, Clark Brody and Maurita Murphy-Mead. She was a prize winner at the International Clarinet Society Competition three times and won the grand prize in her third competition. Her orchestral experience includes the Milwaukee Ballet Orchestra, the New World Symphony, the Spoleto Festival Orchestra, the Glimmerglass Festival Orchestra, the Tri-Cities Opera Orchestra, and the Binghamton Philharmonic and the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, where she became a member of the clarinet section in 2007. Chandler is also proud to serve as the Executive Director for the CCO.
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INSIGHTS
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What made you take up your instrument as a child?
I pretty much begged my parents to get a clarinet; we ended up renting a plastic one when I was in the fifth grade (in Albuquerque, NM). I got to take lessons in middle school, and what did it for me was hearing a clarinet in an orchestra for the first time. I was hooked.
Why do you continue to perform?
It’s a visceral experience and such an immense privilege.
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What inspires you to make music?
Its hard to image a time when I didn’t make music; it feels like its in my DNA. What inspires me at this point – the profound connection I feel with other musicians.
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What makes playing in an orchestra so special?
When I step into an orchestra it feels a bit “like old home week.” I am part of this incredible team of people who bring their talents, their copious work and their musical personalities together to build something beautiful and unpredictable, every time.
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What is special about the CCO, to you?
The CCO has a sort of intimacy and familiarity to me, both because it is a chamber orchestra (and thus smaller), and because I have been working with the people in it for many, many years, and because it is in the town where I have lived for more than twenty years. Then there is the attentive and enamored audience itself: I feel like in some sense we are playing in peoples' living rooms, whether that be in Ford Hall or First Unitarian. It just feels like home.​
Describe a favorite moment or memory with the CCO.
I remember performing in a reduction of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite in the First Presbyterian Church when we were emerging from The Pandemic. The church was sparsely populated but felt full of warmth, thanks to our marvelous audience. I also enjoyed stepping back into the clarinet section for Maestro Pirard’ s first season and being welcomed by my colleagues.
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Is there something you would like CCO audience members to know about you that isn't in your bio?
One: I also have had a career as an academic librarian. Two: our family purchased a 16-foot camper during the pandemic, picked it up at the factor in northern Minnesota, and took it out west for a three-week adventure with our kids. Since then we enjoy taking it out closer to home, including up to the Saint Lawrence Seaway. It’s a happy place for me.