Sarah Cosano
 

"(Cosano) takes an audience on a journey in which she is in control. Listeners are at the mercy of exquisite talent and are left changed after hearing her play." -Boise State Radio Inprint

 

"Lovely voice!" -Food Sake Tokyo

 

From concert halls to cruise lines, Dr. Sarah Cosano is a versatile musician who has travelled the world performing for all types of audiences. Originally a classical musician, she won the MTNA woodwind competition and was discovered by the NPR radio show From the Top. Since then, she has been at the helm of award winning show bands, combos, and orchestras around the globe.

 

Cosano's career is multifaceted: she was the featured jazz vocalist at the New York Bar in the Park Hyatt, Tokyo and also performed in the Mediterranean, Alaska, and Australia with her jazz band, Cambia. She specializes in combining dance and woodwind performance, and toured as a cast member with BLAST Music in Extreme, the Disneyland All American College Band, and the Aimachi production show, Evolution. Cruise ship contracts have taken her to Russia, Estonia, Fiji, New Zealand, Iceland, Belgium, Greenland, Turkey, Italy, Norway,  Greece, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Spain, French Polynesia and the Caribbean. Over the years, Cosano has shared the stage with great artists from both past and present: Bob Florence, George Stone, Bob Mintzer, Sean Jones, Victor Lewis, Ed Calle, The Nelson Brothers, The Coasters, Judy Carmichael, Wayne Bergeron, and more.

 

Cosano has extensive competition experience, being chosen as an MTNA national finalist in all age brackets. She held the Lionel Hampton International Jazz Festival Outstanding Soloist title for two consecutive years. The Affinity saxophone quartet, where she played soprano saxophone, was an MTNA and Fischoff national finalist, and they won the Pittsburgh Concert Society Major Auditions competition in 2003. She also had her Carnegie Hall debut as part of the Duquesne Wind Symphony the same year. 

 

Helping others to find their unique voice is important to Dr. Cosano, and she has experience teaching flute, clarinet, and saxophone to all ages. This includes instructor positions at the Magic Valley School for the Arts, Austin Independent School District, O'Fallon School district, College of Southern Idaho, and a graduate teaching assistantship at Washington State University. She was a Othmer doctoral fellow at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she taught saxophone lessons and jazz history. During that time, Dr. Cosano also was the adjunct saxophone instructor and jazz ensemble director at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska.

 

Her research focus is tango, and in 2010 she received a grant to visit Buenos Aires for her master’s project: Tango from a Social and Historical Perspective: a Performer's Supplement to The Tango Fake Book by Mark Wyman. Her DMA dissertation, Transcribing Astor Piazzolla's Works to Maximize Stylistic Fidelity: an Examination of Three Saxopone Quartets with a New Transcription is a guide to Piazzolla's saxophone quartet arrangements. Cosano has presented research at the North American Saxophone Alliance regional and national conferences (2004, 2015, 2016), the Jazz Education Network (2017), the College Music Society (2017), and NAMM GenNext (2018).

 

Cosano currently is a saxophonist and non-commissioned officer with the United States Air Forces in Europe band. She performs approximately 100+ gigs per year with both local and touring acts. Private lessons are available, both in person and via Skype.