About
CV (updated January 2017)
Sabrina Clarke is a composer and pianist based in Philadelphia, PA. She is on the music theory faculty at the University of Delaware, and teaches both theory courses and private composition lessons at Temple University. In addition, she is on the faculty at the Cappella School of Music in Oreland, PA, where she provides private instruction in piano, composition, and theory to people of all ages.
Sabrina's music has been performed internationally at venues including Felix Meritis Hall in Amsterdam, the Nordic Historical Keyboard Festival in Kuopio, Finland, the Schola Cantorum in Paris, France, and Jan Hus Presbyterian Church in NYC. Her music has also been featured at various conferences and festivals, including the Society of Composers Region III Conference and the Colonial Williamsburg Early Music Festival. Her projects have involved collaborations with various distinguished artists and ensembles, including harpsichordist Joyce Lindorff, choreographer Megan Mizanty, flutist Cynthia Folio, mezzo soprano Katherine Crawford, and Network for New Music.
Sabrina completed her Ph.D. in Music at Temple University's Boyer College of Music and Dance in 2016, with a focus in composition and emphases in piano and teaching in higher education. Her cross-disciplinary dissertation explores how Italian composer Luigi Dallapiccola's musical language shows the influence of the nonlinear narratives and temporal ideologies utilized by authors James Joyce and Marcel Proust. Her continuing research examines how this nonlinear narrative trope influenced various composers in the latter half of the twentieth century. In 2015, Sabrina was a recipient of the Presser Graduate Music Award, which funded archival research at the Fondo Luigi Dallapiccola at the Archivio Contemporaneo Bonsanti in Florence, Italy and the Dallapiccola/Dwight Collection at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.
Aside from temporality and narrative in the twelve-tone work of Luigi Dallapiccola, Sabrina's research interests include female agency and nature imagery in the piano works of Amy Beach. Sabrina has been invited to present her research at meetings of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic; the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of CMS; and the Mid-Atlantic and Capital Chapters of the AMS, and at conferences including the Music by Women Conference at the Mississippi University for Women; the American Women Pianist-Composers Conference at the University of New Hampshire; and the Women in the Creative Arts Conference at the Australian National University in Canberra.
In addition to Temple University, where she also earned her M.M. in composition, Sabrina is an alumnus of the European American Musical Alliance Summer Music Program held in Paris, France, where she earned distinction in harmony. She graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from McDaniel College with her B.A. in music theory and composition, receiving the 1938 Award for Excellence in Music as a senior. She is also an alumnus of the Hood College Music Preparatory Program, where she received training in piano, theory, and composition.
