Currently on faculty at the University of West Florida and Bethune-Cookman University, Dr. Sarah Jane Young has performed with the Tallahassee Symphony since 2005 and the Pensacola Symphony since 2007. She began her orchestral career in 2001 with the Wallingford Symphony Orchestra in Connecticut. After receiving her Master’s degree from Florida State University, Sarah Jane was selected as the Professor of Flute at the King Hussein Foundation National Music Conservatory in Amman, Jordan. While there, she served as Principal Flute with the Amman Symphony Orchestra and the Amman Sinfonietta, as well as the National Music Conservatory Woodwind Quintet. She has performed for both Queen Noor (Queen Consort of Jordan) and Princess Muna al-Hussein (Princess consort of Jordan). As a soloist and chamber musician, she has performed in Canada, England, Jordan, Costa Rica, Belgium, Italy, Bolivia, and throughout the United States. Performance venues include Sprague Hall, Woolsey Hall, Jerash South Theater in Jordan, Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center. She has had the honor to share the stage with such prestigious artists as Gunther Schuller, Christopher O’Riley, J. K. Simmons, and Renée Fleming.
As a chamber musician Sarah Jane currently performs with the Bold City Contemporary Ensemble based in Jacksonville, Florida, a featured ensemble at the TEDx Jacksonville 2018 Conference. She is a founding member of the Young-Peiskee Duo, an international flute a piano duo that has been featured performers by both
the EMMA Guild as well as at the 2020 Florida Flute Association Convention; Duo Velocipede, an adventurous flute and saxophone duo specializing in the music of Neil Anderson-Himmelspach; the Coreopsis Wind Quintet, winner of the Promising Young Artist Competition; Traverso Colore, a baroque flute ensemble performing entirely on period instruments; and award winning new music ensemble What Is Noise.
She has performed as a guest artist at the National Institute of Music in Costa Rica, Harford Community College in Maryland, Furman University, the University of North Carolina at Ashville and Chapel Hill, James Madison University, University of Missouri, Florida State University, Webster University, the Conservatory of Music in Bolivia, University of Florida, University of Southern Mississippi, University of Southern Georgia, North Florida University, and Troy University. As a featured artist for Jacksonville University’s annual Electroacoustic Barn Dance she has performed works by various guest composers requiring anything from extended techniques, to improvisation, to one-handed flute playing while utilizing an iPad with the other.
She has served on faculty at the FSU Summer Band Camp, Montelione Music Camp, and is currently on faculty at the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp. While at Florida State she studied with Eva Amsler and completed her treatise: A Survey of Orchestral Excerpt Books for the Flute. She received her Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Massachusetts where she studied with Christopher Krueger. She will occasionally travel to New York to study with Robert Langevin, Principal Flutist of the New York Philharmonic.
