Sarah Steranka

Woodwind & Mixed Chamber Music Coordinator

Bio

Based in Pittsburgh, flutist Sarah Steranka enjoys a multifaceted career as a recitalist, chamber musician, and advocate for new and experimental music. She has dedicated her career to exploring the innovative work of living composers and pushing the boundaries of her instruments and has premiered works by Ramin Akhavijou, Hannah Selin, Brittany J. Green, Marilyn Shrude, Elizabeth Brown, Erin Rogers, Nicole Mitchell, Nancy Galbraith, Lauren Siess, and countless others. 

Ms. Steranka has presented programs of new and experimental music at the SCI National Student Conference, the Mid-Atlantic Flute Festival, Music on the Edge’s Beyond Microtonal Music Festival, the New Jersey Flute Fair, The Pittsburgh Festival of New Music, and The Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project’s Re:Sound festival. Her recordings of solo and chamber works have been published by Sound Silence Thought, Albany Records, and Naxos, and have in addition been self-published by countless composers.

As a symphony musician, Ms. Steranka is second flute of the Westmoreland Symphony and also appears as a guest with the Chamber Orchestra of Pittsburgh, the Akron Symphony, and the Erie Philharmonic. In addition, she is a core member of the nationally recognized new music collective Kamraton, where she plays flute and piccolo as well as alto and bass flutes. She also makes up one half of the acclaimed Brooklyn-based group SydeBoob Duo, a group dedicated to commissioning new works for flute & voice and amplifying the voices of women in the arts. 

In addition to maintaining a private studio of 30+ students through the Steranka Flute Studio, LLC, Ms. Steranka maintains a faculty position at Carnegie Mellon University. She has also appeared as a guest artist and lecturer at Lawrence University, Penn State University, Duke University, West Virginia University’s International Flute Symposium, and Columbus State University. Her instructional work has also included teaching actors to play the flute for film roles. 

Ms. Steranka holds a master's degree from Duquesne University where she studied with Jennifer Steele and a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University where her principal teachers were Alberto Almarza and Jeanne Baxtresser.