Sarah Dukes

Sarah Dukes started playing piano when she was six years old and composed her first song at the mere age of eight. Classically trained until she was 18, the North Carolina raised pianist increasingly turned to her music and songwriting as a way of expressing herself, and by the time Sarah finished high school, she had a stirring collection of original pieces that made up her debut album, “Finding Forever”.

A completely self-taught composer, Sarah focused on enhancing her skills while studying at New York’s Yeshiva University. Working with professor of music and composer, Christopher Buchenholz, her prowess in composing music began to cement. As a result, Sarah suddenly found herself writing music that exceeded even her own technical mastery. Unwilling to sacrifice a perfect execution of the songs for her own debut album, she turned to world-renowned pianist, composer, and musical director, Yaron Gershovsky, whose performance preserved the exact emotions and sounds in Sarah’s mind.

Sarah’s compositions offer listeners soothing, melodic arrangements bursting with an emotional energy that is unmistakably straight from the heart, and her abundant talent has garnered numerous awards in her burgeoning career. Her songs “The Memory that Lives On” and “If Only” won awards in the Performing Arts Senior Division for the Pittsburgh JCC’s Annual Holocaust Arts and Writing Competition. Dukes was handpicked by Whisperings-Solo Piano Radio as one of their exclusively featured solo piano artists, and was granted the Akademia Music Award for best pop ballad in 2015 for her song “No More.” Her richly nuanced songs have been featured in several popular documentaries produced by Jewish Educational Media, as well as streamed on various international channels including Enlightened Piano Radio, and One World Music Radio.

Since first emerging as a prodigious composer and pianist in late 2011 with her debut album, Dukes’ career has continued in an upward trajectory. Sarah recently released a new album of original piano solos, ‘Life Sometimes’, which has been selected a winner in the Global Music Awards and was honored with a Silver Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Music in the New Age Solo Piano and Album categories. This album was ranked #17 on Zone Music Reporter’s ‘Top 100 Radio Airplay’ chart, and was on the first round ballot for the 59th GRAMMY Awards. The most recent releases of her singles One: Orchestrated Version, and Raining Rockets introduced a new level of musical beauty to her already powerful collection of original compositions. She may have begun as a precocious prodigy, but her impressive oeuvre seems sure to secure her place in the musical stratosphere for years to come.

Stay updated on Sarah’s new music and performances by joining her fan page at http://www.facebook.com/sarahdukesmusic. For more information, visit http://www.sarahdukesmusic.com.