Caswell, Sara

Violinist from Bloomington, Indiana, who started formal training with Mimi Zweig at five years of age. At eight years of age, she was already studying jazz with David Baker. She made her debut with an orchestra at fifteen years of age in Kansas City where she performed the “Double Concerto for Violin and Cello” by Johannes Brahms.

She attended Indiana University, where she studied with Josef Gingold, and the Manhattan School of Music, from whence she acquired her Master of Music degree. Other teachers included Franco Gulli, Henryk Kowalski, Stanley Ritchie and Sylvia Rosenberg.

In 2004 she became a member of the New York Pops Orchestra under the baton of Skitch Henderson. Other groups with whom she has worked include the Bloomington Symphony, the Camerata Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Columbus Philharmonic, the Indianapolis Symphony, the JazzMN Orchestra, My Band Foot-Foot, Sisters in Jazz, the Sparks Fly Quintet, the Springfield Symphony and the Steve Hudson Chamber Ensemble along with several others.

She also fronts her own Sara Caswell Quartet and shares billing with her sister Rachel, a vocalist, in the Caswell Sisters Quintet.

In 2010 and 2011, she went on the road with the Randy Newman Project Band in support of Roseanna Vitro’s tribute album, The Music of Randy Newman.

The Caswell Sisters teamed up with the JazzMN Orchestra on 10^th March 2012 at the Hopkins Center for the Performing Arts in a concert that included “First Love Song” by Bob Brookmeyer, “Floating Home” by Gordon Goodwin and “Hickory and Twine” by Alan Baylock.

On 22^nd June 2012, Sara was one of a handful of musicians who premiered Alexis Cuadrado’s “Jazz Miniatures for Double Quartet” at the Jazz Gallery in New York.

She has several recordings to her credit, including solo albums entitled But Beautiful and First Song. Other CDs that feature her fiddling talents include Attractions by Cynthia Sayer, Evolution by Jon Gordon, Leading Lines by Michael Webster, Music for String Quartet and Jazz Quartet by Peter Ehwald & Benedikt Jahnel, My True Name by Carrie Newcomer, Some Other Time by Rachel Caswell. You can also hear her on the soundtrack of Circling Around: The Violin Virtuosi.

In the field of music education, she has taught at the Indiana University String Academy, the Jamey Aebersold Summer Jazz Workshop, the Lamont School of Music, the Manhattan School of Music College and Precollege Divisions, and the Mark O’Connor String Camp. She has also given private lessons.

Not only is she well-respected by her mentors and peers as a classical and jazz violinist: She does double duty on mandolin when performing with Rose & the Nightingale.

Sources:

Caswell, Sara

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