Sarah Koonce is an active freelance musician in Boston and has toured extensively throughout the eastern U.S. and abroad.  She was a longtime accompanist for the Premiere Choir of Boston Children’s Chorus, with whom she toured Jordan, the United Kingdom, Southeast Asia, and Europe, with performances including national television, BBC/NPR, Carnegie Hall and Royal Albert Hall.  Her choral accompanying experience also includes the Cantata Singers, and Handel and Haydn Society’s Young Women’s Chorus.  Koonce accompanied for the Handel and Haydn Society Vocal Quartet and has played for the Longwood Symphony Orchestra. Other previous positions for accompanying and/or musical direction include New England Light Opera, Emerson College, New England Conservatory Preparatory School, Stonehill College, Interlochen Arts Camp, and the America Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria.  Her piano teaching experience includes Handel and Haydn Society’s Saturday School at Boston Latin, the Chestnut Hill School, and numerous private students. She is a soprano alumnus of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, with whom she toured Europe and participated in the Grammy Award-winning recording of Ravel’s Daphnes et Chloé.

Koonce holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in piano performance from Florida State University, where she studied piano, voice and organ. She completed a fellowship in vocal accompanying/coaching at the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria, where she also taught performance health workshops for singers. She holds a second Master’s degree in Physician Assistant Studies from Northeastern University.  Koonce balances out her dual passions in music and medicine by working as a PA specializing in spine care, and leading the spine navigation program, at Newton-Wellesley Hospital.