about
I have been on the teaching faculties of the Community Music School of Springfield in Springfield, MA (piano), the Community School for the Arts in Storrs, CT (piano), Interlochen Center for the Arts in Interlochen, Michigan (music theory), and Bowling Green State University's Summer Music Institute (vocal arts coach). I have held staff accompanist and vocal coach positions at the Hartt School and the University of Connecticut. These positions included giving regular one-on-one coachings and performing on recitals (including undergraduate, masters, and doctoral degree recitals for vocalists and instrumentalists). I have also performed as collaborative pianist on student degree recitals at the Musikakademie der Stadt Basel in Switzerland, UMass Amherst, and Boston University, and as soloist on a faculty showcase at Bennington College in Vermont. While at UConn I also had the opportunity to record, with mezzo-soprano Meredith Ziegler, a set of art songs by voice professor and composer Greg Zavracky. The set included seven songs, each with settings of poems from Hilda Doolittle's Sea Garden. I have been invited to perform as pianist for various productions (including UConn Opera's She Loves Me (2018), Hartford Opera Theater's A Bridge for Three (2018), and Bowling Green Children’s Opera's The Three Billy Goats Gruff (2013)), and I served as pianist intern at the San Miguel Institute of Bel Canto in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. I was piano soloist with the Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra for Carnival of the Animals (2016). Most recently I was music director and performance pianist for Ghost Light Theater's production of Lizzie: The Musical (2023).
I have a B.A. (double major in English and Music, magna cum laude) from the College of William and Mary and an M.M. in Piano Performance from Bowling Green State University in Ohio, where I was a graduate assistant and received a full scholarship and stipend. While a student, I received scholarships to attend the Bay View Chamber Music Festival in Petoskey, Michigan (2011) and the soundSCAPE Composition and Performance Exchange in Pavia, Italy (2008).
As a professional teacher and artist-educator, I have organized and led workshops for my students on the themes of music and movement, music and competition, and music and anxiety. I have also organized and performed on benefit recitals to support Syrian refugees and hurricane survivors in Puerto Rico. Themed recitals I have organized as a soloist and/or been invited to participate in as collaborator, with music chosen to serve as sources of inspiration and calls to action, have included “Into the Darkness” (2023), "Black Music in Motion" with Kareem Mack, baritenor (2019), and “Lifting the Veil” with Elizabeth Hayes, mezzo-soprano (2017).
I have a B.A. (double major in English and Music, magna cum laude) from the College of William and Mary and an M.M. in Piano Performance from Bowling Green State University in Ohio, where I was a graduate assistant and received a full scholarship and stipend. While a student, I received scholarships to attend the Bay View Chamber Music Festival in Petoskey, Michigan (2011) and the soundSCAPE Composition and Performance Exchange in Pavia, Italy (2008).
As a professional teacher and artist-educator, I have organized and led workshops for my students on the themes of music and movement, music and competition, and music and anxiety. I have also organized and performed on benefit recitals to support Syrian refugees and hurricane survivors in Puerto Rico. Themed recitals I have organized as a soloist and/or been invited to participate in as collaborator, with music chosen to serve as sources of inspiration and calls to action, have included “Into the Darkness” (2023), "Black Music in Motion" with Kareem Mack, baritenor (2019), and “Lifting the Veil” with Elizabeth Hayes, mezzo-soprano (2017).
I live in western Massachusetts, on unceded Pocomtuc lands. I use she/her pronouns. I am white, of European descent. I have ancestors who were part of the original Jamestown colony. I have deeply investigated and continue to investigate and work with the shadows I’ve inherited from this lineage, including my racial and class privilege. I also live with multiple chronic health conditions that have shaped and deepened my relationship to music.
I actively aspire in my teaching and in my life to be an embodied and trauma-informed feminist, anti-racist, anti-colonialist/anti-capitalist, always working to decolonize myself and dismantle white supremacy and other related systems of oppression including ableism, classism, and gender/sexuality-based discrimination, and working to bring awareness to how these systemic ways of thinking are interwoven with how we think about and relate to the Earth. I recognize that this is a process and lifelong work.
I actively aspire in my teaching and in my life to be an embodied and trauma-informed feminist, anti-racist, anti-colonialist/anti-capitalist, always working to decolonize myself and dismantle white supremacy and other related systems of oppression including ableism, classism, and gender/sexuality-based discrimination, and working to bring awareness to how these systemic ways of thinking are interwoven with how we think about and relate to the Earth. I recognize that this is a process and lifelong work.
Reviews and awards
“Sarah Puckett…ably assisted the orchestra and lent color and dimension to the characterizations” (The Virginia Gazette)
“Their pianist Sarah Puckett accompanied them with poise and sensitivity.” (The UConn Daily Campus)
Second place in the 2012 Dr. Marjorie Conrad Art Song competition
2012 Pro Musica scholarship to attend Bay View chamber music festival in Petoskey, MI
2008 and 2009 Gladys Iseman Clark scholarship in applied music
2008 Mellon Grant to premiere new compositions at soundSCAPE Festival in Pavia, Italy
“Their pianist Sarah Puckett accompanied them with poise and sensitivity.” (The UConn Daily Campus)
Second place in the 2012 Dr. Marjorie Conrad Art Song competition
2012 Pro Musica scholarship to attend Bay View chamber music festival in Petoskey, MI
2008 and 2009 Gladys Iseman Clark scholarship in applied music
2008 Mellon Grant to premiere new compositions at soundSCAPE Festival in Pavia, Italy
the rest of the story (because credentials aren't everything)
"I made a fateful decision that I was actually going to devote my life to human expression versus human perfection."
-Yo-Yo Ma
-Yo-Yo Ma
A note: I realize there is a lot of text here! If it feels like too much to read top to bottom, you might skim, and simply allow yourself to take in whatever catches your eye, or just skip it and browse the other pages. I've included lots of ways throughout this website to get familiar with me and what I'm offering. I'm glad you're here, and however you approach my site is perfect.
In 2019, I was hired as faculty for the BSO (Boston Symphony Orchestra) Tanglewood Festival's Young Artist Vocal Program–a prestigious position I was very excited about–but had to withdraw because of my health (I was experiencing constant, excruciating neck pain that was ongoing for several months. The pain was so severe I couldn't turn my head, and it never flagged. This frozenness hindered every movement and sapped my energy. Doctors had no answers or relief to offer). This moment was of course extremely disappointing, but significant–because it launched me on a path of deep introspection and exploration of healing modalities, which I had already been very interested in, but which my life now demanded I focus much more time and energy on.
The most powerful thing I found through my explorations is that the body holds both clues and keys to everything. Very often it is the body, more than anything else, that brings us to deeper awareness and healing. When the body breaks down, when we experience severe pain or other symptoms which make it hard or impossible to function as we previously had been doing, we are forced to pay attention in a different way and to become creative. This can be a gift and a source of deep wisdom.
My own journey was already very somatically focused from early on, beginning when forearm and elbow stiffness and pain diagnosed as tendonitis made my graduate degree difficult. Traditional approaches, i.e., physical therapy or piano technique approaches which dealt directly with the area that was in pain but did not take into account the rest of the body or person, made little difference–but Alexander Technique, which I found because a local teacher had put a flier up in the music building, proved to be revolutionary. After several lessons, I noticed big changes. For the first time in my life I felt like I could really take a deep breath, or really, know what a truly deep breath feels like. I had never enjoyed running, but suddenly I was going for runs regularly, for fun. My seasonal allergies gradually disappeared. My circulation improved, my energy increased, and my mood stabilized. Imbalances related to scoliosis effectively vanished. I discovered a deep source of power and musical expression at the piano, which gave me access to a greater degree of control and joy while playing.
I felt AT to be a complete system which dealt not only with the presenting physical issue but also with the habitual movement and thinking patterns which underpin it, and I was prepared to devote my life to this new paradigm. I did a year of professional teacher training in Zürich, Switzerland, and came to western Mass to continue studying in Amherst.
Because I sincerely enjoyed the work I had done with vocalists in graduate school, I became a professional collaborative pianist in universities in Connecticut and Massachusetts, and discovered even more that I both really enjoyed and had an intuitive talent for collaborative piano and vocal coaching in particular. My Alexander training supported me immensely through this time, but after about seven years of being a full-time professional pianist, teacher, and vocal coach, several things that had been accumulating both in my internal experience and in what I was observing in the students and colleagues around me reared up and demanded major change in my life.
The most powerful thing I found through my explorations is that the body holds both clues and keys to everything. Very often it is the body, more than anything else, that brings us to deeper awareness and healing. When the body breaks down, when we experience severe pain or other symptoms which make it hard or impossible to function as we previously had been doing, we are forced to pay attention in a different way and to become creative. This can be a gift and a source of deep wisdom.
My own journey was already very somatically focused from early on, beginning when forearm and elbow stiffness and pain diagnosed as tendonitis made my graduate degree difficult. Traditional approaches, i.e., physical therapy or piano technique approaches which dealt directly with the area that was in pain but did not take into account the rest of the body or person, made little difference–but Alexander Technique, which I found because a local teacher had put a flier up in the music building, proved to be revolutionary. After several lessons, I noticed big changes. For the first time in my life I felt like I could really take a deep breath, or really, know what a truly deep breath feels like. I had never enjoyed running, but suddenly I was going for runs regularly, for fun. My seasonal allergies gradually disappeared. My circulation improved, my energy increased, and my mood stabilized. Imbalances related to scoliosis effectively vanished. I discovered a deep source of power and musical expression at the piano, which gave me access to a greater degree of control and joy while playing.
I felt AT to be a complete system which dealt not only with the presenting physical issue but also with the habitual movement and thinking patterns which underpin it, and I was prepared to devote my life to this new paradigm. I did a year of professional teacher training in Zürich, Switzerland, and came to western Mass to continue studying in Amherst.
Because I sincerely enjoyed the work I had done with vocalists in graduate school, I became a professional collaborative pianist in universities in Connecticut and Massachusetts, and discovered even more that I both really enjoyed and had an intuitive talent for collaborative piano and vocal coaching in particular. My Alexander training supported me immensely through this time, but after about seven years of being a full-time professional pianist, teacher, and vocal coach, several things that had been accumulating both in my internal experience and in what I was observing in the students and colleagues around me reared up and demanded major change in my life.
***
Every year, I watched each college freshman class enter with higher and higher baseline levels of anxiety. Many students exhibited distressing behaviors in lessons that weren’t easily explained away by concepts like “stage fright,” “nerves,” or “performance anxiety”. They were unable to access artistic expression. They couldn’t find a deep breath. They would regularly break down sobbing. Some would seem to develop a temporary dyslexia during lessons, unable to distinguish consonants from vowels as they read the words off of their music scores. Even some of my private piano students as young as 7 would experience high levels of stress and work themselves up into balls of tension wanting to play perfectly, despite my efforts to create a supportive atmosphere. High-achieving teenaged piano students would sometimes show up ready to collapse, exhausted from their school workloads and pressure to get into college. Despite spending over a decade studying and teaching bodywork in lessons to help my students and myself access greater mental focus and artistic expression, I found that without also addressing the energy and emotions and providing meaningful support structures and communities within which students can explore and live into the healthy principles encouraged by these bodywork modalities (which often felt impossible to do within a system that seemed to encourage students to stretch beyond their appropriate limits and continually emphasized productivity and perfection over authentic exploration and expression), the work only penetrated so far.
Although natural variations in disposition do not necessarily reveal anything problematic about society, I was witnessing a widespread enough phenomenon that I wanted to check with some of my academic colleagues about it. After speaking to a high-up music department administrator at one of the schools I worked at, I learned that over half of the students in the choir were taking anti-depressants or anti-anxiety medication (information revealed by paperwork they had to submit for a choir trip they were taking). It was clear something serious was going on at the collective level. The powerlessness I felt against this huge collective phenomenon of distress contributed to my own breakdown and physical illness which required me to withdraw from the Tanglewood position, and from my classical music career entirely for almost four years.
What I had begun to see gradually over years of close observation, research, involvement in the community, and my own lived process, and could now could no longer deny the seriousness and immediacy of, is that a very powerful element of my and my students' experience had to do with the fact that we are experiencing an epidemic of psychophysical dysfunction related to the widespread, intergenerational, traumatizing conditions and internalized effects of a society built on exploitative capitalism, racism, and genocide. These conditions are not abstract, but rather are lived out on a daily basis in our workplaces, our schools, our families, and our most intimate relationships and can look like pushing ourselves past our limits, using ourselves and others to reach some desired outcome and losing touch completely with the process, idealizing unrealistic standards of perfection and devaluing our unique humanness. And because distractions are so readily available and effective support can be scarce, we often live disconnected as a way to cope. From this disconnected place, seemingly mysterious dysfunction and even medical illness can often result. The distressing symptoms I witnessed in students were not outsize reactions, oversensitivities, or indications of laziness or poor attitude; they were completely normal reactions to being a student, an artist, or person within the abnormal conditions of this society. But “normal”, I was beginning to more fully realize, does not equal healthy.
Although natural variations in disposition do not necessarily reveal anything problematic about society, I was witnessing a widespread enough phenomenon that I wanted to check with some of my academic colleagues about it. After speaking to a high-up music department administrator at one of the schools I worked at, I learned that over half of the students in the choir were taking anti-depressants or anti-anxiety medication (information revealed by paperwork they had to submit for a choir trip they were taking). It was clear something serious was going on at the collective level. The powerlessness I felt against this huge collective phenomenon of distress contributed to my own breakdown and physical illness which required me to withdraw from the Tanglewood position, and from my classical music career entirely for almost four years.
What I had begun to see gradually over years of close observation, research, involvement in the community, and my own lived process, and could now could no longer deny the seriousness and immediacy of, is that a very powerful element of my and my students' experience had to do with the fact that we are experiencing an epidemic of psychophysical dysfunction related to the widespread, intergenerational, traumatizing conditions and internalized effects of a society built on exploitative capitalism, racism, and genocide. These conditions are not abstract, but rather are lived out on a daily basis in our workplaces, our schools, our families, and our most intimate relationships and can look like pushing ourselves past our limits, using ourselves and others to reach some desired outcome and losing touch completely with the process, idealizing unrealistic standards of perfection and devaluing our unique humanness. And because distractions are so readily available and effective support can be scarce, we often live disconnected as a way to cope. From this disconnected place, seemingly mysterious dysfunction and even medical illness can often result. The distressing symptoms I witnessed in students were not outsize reactions, oversensitivities, or indications of laziness or poor attitude; they were completely normal reactions to being a student, an artist, or person within the abnormal conditions of this society. But “normal”, I was beginning to more fully realize, does not equal healthy.
***
I also found that healing is possible.
Although living with that much inexplicable pain was excruciating, it also taught me what truly being present meant, because being anywhere else, thinking of anything else but this sensorily charged moment, was impossible. Even taking it day by day was impossible; I was living breath by breath. I practiced meditation and extremely gentle Qigong and yoga for hours every day, and walked very slowly in Nature. I studied and experienced body-centered psychotherapy and the deeply intertwined relationships between energy, emotion, societal dysfunction, ancestral trauma, and physical illness. Eventually this brought my nervous system into a more balanced state. And gradually, although I used to think I might never play again, music irresistibly called me back. Being knocked off of my linear path, while extremely challenging, gave me insights and gifts I could have never found otherwise, and gave me the capacity to gently guide and sit with others in compassion as they move along their own unique healing and artistic paths. It gave me the convictions that we each hold incredible power, that music and sound give us an opportunity to access spirit/mystery/the divine (choose whatever word works in your belief system), and that healing is always possible.
My experience of needing more support for my own and my students' personal well-being and success than what the conventional classical music academic system provided led me to seek deeper understanding of both individual and societal patterns and dysfunctions. Although I initially found my way to healing work because I was trying to become a better musician, music also became an arena for exploration through which both what was in need of healing AND ways to heal were revealed. After being on this path for about 15 years, it is my experience-backed belief that focusing on health leads to all the best things about making music--greater meaning, expression, power, flow, sensitivity, enjoyment, and presence. And the effects of being able to find these qualities in our music making individually, then bring them into the relational sphere, are unlimited.
Find out more about what I think it means to focus on health in learning and playing music here.
Although living with that much inexplicable pain was excruciating, it also taught me what truly being present meant, because being anywhere else, thinking of anything else but this sensorily charged moment, was impossible. Even taking it day by day was impossible; I was living breath by breath. I practiced meditation and extremely gentle Qigong and yoga for hours every day, and walked very slowly in Nature. I studied and experienced body-centered psychotherapy and the deeply intertwined relationships between energy, emotion, societal dysfunction, ancestral trauma, and physical illness. Eventually this brought my nervous system into a more balanced state. And gradually, although I used to think I might never play again, music irresistibly called me back. Being knocked off of my linear path, while extremely challenging, gave me insights and gifts I could have never found otherwise, and gave me the capacity to gently guide and sit with others in compassion as they move along their own unique healing and artistic paths. It gave me the convictions that we each hold incredible power, that music and sound give us an opportunity to access spirit/mystery/the divine (choose whatever word works in your belief system), and that healing is always possible.
My experience of needing more support for my own and my students' personal well-being and success than what the conventional classical music academic system provided led me to seek deeper understanding of both individual and societal patterns and dysfunctions. Although I initially found my way to healing work because I was trying to become a better musician, music also became an arena for exploration through which both what was in need of healing AND ways to heal were revealed. After being on this path for about 15 years, it is my experience-backed belief that focusing on health leads to all the best things about making music--greater meaning, expression, power, flow, sensitivity, enjoyment, and presence. And the effects of being able to find these qualities in our music making individually, then bring them into the relational sphere, are unlimited.
Find out more about what I think it means to focus on health in learning and playing music here.
influences on my healing and professional path
Piano studies with Christine Niehaus, Thomas Rosenkranz, and Robert Shannon.
Alexander Technique studies with Nancy Crego (Toledo, OH), Robin and Beatrice Simmons-Heiz (Zurich, Switzerland), and Missy Vineyard (Amherst, MA).
In-person ongoing Qigong studies (Energy Gates) with Kathryn Komidar at Toward Harmony Tai Chi and Qigong (Northampton, MA); In-person private studies (Yi Quan standing meditations and the Bear and the Crane from Animal Frolics) with Ken Cohen (Nederland, CO); Online Qigong workshops and courses with Daisy Lee (Zang Fu Gong), Robert Peng (Four Golden Wheels), Ken Cohen (Primordial Qigong), and Michael Gelb.
A 13-year ongoing daily at-home yoga practice, relying largely on the guidance of Rodney Yee and Adriene Mishler and the teachings of B.K.S. Iyengar.
Nine months on a body-centered psychotherapy training course for licensed therapists which incorporated Gestalt therapy, Buddhism-based mindfulness techniques, and Indigenous healing modalities (I am not a licensed therapist; I attended on invitation from the founder/director of the course).
Other studies including shamanic sound healing training with David Heartsong in Brattleboro, VT and a workshop with Gabor Maté called "When the Body Says No: The Mind/Body Connection in Health and Illness".
Meditation instruction offered by Tara Brach, Shinzen Young, and Jon Kabat-Zinn.
The profound work of Resmaa Menakem and Sherri Mitchell.
The teachings of George Gurdjieff, and since 2020, participation in a Northampton, MA based Gurdjieff Work group.
Additional experience working as an English literature educational writer/curriculum developer, a book researcher, a developer of curriculum on the embodied psychology of flow state for a brain training company, a residential mental health counselor at a group living environment for individuals who have just been discharged from the mental hospital, a piano teacher doubling as a nanny for expat children in Basel, Switzerland, a waitress, an intern at Atlanta Magazine, and a cashier and barista at a southwestern themed car wash and detailing center in Atlanta called Cactus Car Wash.
Alexander Technique studies with Nancy Crego (Toledo, OH), Robin and Beatrice Simmons-Heiz (Zurich, Switzerland), and Missy Vineyard (Amherst, MA).
In-person ongoing Qigong studies (Energy Gates) with Kathryn Komidar at Toward Harmony Tai Chi and Qigong (Northampton, MA); In-person private studies (Yi Quan standing meditations and the Bear and the Crane from Animal Frolics) with Ken Cohen (Nederland, CO); Online Qigong workshops and courses with Daisy Lee (Zang Fu Gong), Robert Peng (Four Golden Wheels), Ken Cohen (Primordial Qigong), and Michael Gelb.
A 13-year ongoing daily at-home yoga practice, relying largely on the guidance of Rodney Yee and Adriene Mishler and the teachings of B.K.S. Iyengar.
Nine months on a body-centered psychotherapy training course for licensed therapists which incorporated Gestalt therapy, Buddhism-based mindfulness techniques, and Indigenous healing modalities (I am not a licensed therapist; I attended on invitation from the founder/director of the course).
Other studies including shamanic sound healing training with David Heartsong in Brattleboro, VT and a workshop with Gabor Maté called "When the Body Says No: The Mind/Body Connection in Health and Illness".
Meditation instruction offered by Tara Brach, Shinzen Young, and Jon Kabat-Zinn.
The profound work of Resmaa Menakem and Sherri Mitchell.
The teachings of George Gurdjieff, and since 2020, participation in a Northampton, MA based Gurdjieff Work group.
Additional experience working as an English literature educational writer/curriculum developer, a book researcher, a developer of curriculum on the embodied psychology of flow state for a brain training company, a residential mental health counselor at a group living environment for individuals who have just been discharged from the mental hospital, a piano teacher doubling as a nanny for expat children in Basel, Switzerland, a waitress, an intern at Atlanta Magazine, and a cashier and barista at a southwestern themed car wash and detailing center in Atlanta called Cactus Car Wash.