Sarah Tiedemann

Instructor of Flute

An accomplished flutist, educator, and arts administrator, Sarah Tiedemann is Second Flute/Piccolo of the Oregon Ballet Theatre Orchestra and frequently performs with new music groups including Third Angle New Music. She has also performed locally with the Oregon Symphony and Portland Opera, and internationally in orchestras including the Swedish Radio Symphony, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Norrköping Symphony, and Boston Philharmonic. Prior to joining the faculty at Lewis & Clark College, Sarah taught Flute and Aural Skills at Willamette University for nearly a decade, and she maintains an active private studio here in Portland. Her students regularly participate in the All-Northwest and All-State Bands and Orchestras, Portland Youth Philharmonic and Metropolitan Youth Symphony, and several have won awards at the OSAA State Solo Competition and gone on to study at prestigious music schools including Oberlin Conservatory, the Manhattan School of Music, and the Hartt School of Music.

Sarah received her Bachelor of Music degree in Flute Performance from Oberlin Conservatory, followed by a Master of Music degree in Flute Performance from New England Conservatory. In 2002 she was a national winner of the U.S. Department of Education’s Jacob K. Javits Fellowship in Performance, and she then went on to pursue postgraduate studies at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, Sweden funded by a fellowship from the American-Scandinavian Foundation and a travel grant from the American Women’s Club of Sweden. Her teachers have included Jeanne Baxtresser, Michel Debost, John Heiss, Tobias Carron and Karen Gifford. Sarah performs on a Muramatsu flute with a Rodger Young kingwood headjoint, and a Brannen piccolo.

Sarah was appointed Executive Director of Young Musicians & Artists (YMA) in 2016, after previously serving as Marketing Director at Chamber Music Northwest and Communications Coordinator at Third Angle New Music. A modern-day Renaissance woman, she has run a national congressional campaign, volunteered at an urban planning nonprofit, backpacked throughout the Northwest, dabbled in acting, and studied voice with Grammy-nominated artist Valerie Day. She is also known to make a mean cappuccino. In her spare time, she enjoys running, hiking, urban farming, and fixing up her 100-year-old house with her husband and two cats.