Sarah Koo Freeman

Cellist Sarah Koo Freeman is known not only for her solo and chamber performances, but also as an educator and outreach advocate. She holds Master of Music and Bachelor of Music degrees from The Juilliard School, where she received the William Schumann Award. At age 18, she attended the Pacific Music Festival in Japan, where she was selected as assistant principal cellist. In 2000, she made her New York debut in a solo recital at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall as the youngest winner of the New York Artists International Competition.

Koo Freeman served as assistant principal cellist of the Phoenix Symphony. Prior to that appointment, she toured Europe, including Italy, with the Symfonica Arturo Toscanini under the direction of Maestro Lorin Maazel. An active chamber musician, she has been featured in Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall and Avery Fisher Hall, studying with artists such as Gil Shaham, Joseph Kalichstein, Peter Salaff, Jerome Lowenthal and Jonathan Feldman. Her primary cello teachers include Gilda Barston, Richard Hirschl, Darrett Adkins and Ardyth Alton.

An advocate for outreach, she served as a teaching artist with the New York Philharmonic, bringing music education to public schools in New York. As a recipient of the Community Service Fellowship at Juilliard, she brought performances to confined audiences including nursing homes and cancer wards, and she has encouraged the growth of similar programs nationwide. She has also been featured in Robb Report magazine and on the cover of Residential Systems magazine for her efforts to bring classical music back to the home as a primary means of entertainment.

Koo Freeman is currently a cello professor and chamber music lecturer at the University of California, Irvine, and also serves on the cello faculty at the Colburn Community School of Performing Arts.