Sabrina R Clarke

Sabrina R Clarke
  • Composer, Assistant Professor
  • Department: Music Theory, History, & Composition
  • Institution: West Chester University of Pennsylvania
  • Email: SCLARKE@wcupa.edu

Education

  • Ph.D., Music, Boyer College of Music Temple University, 2016
  • B.A., McDaniel College Westminster, MD, 2010

Research Interests

Music Composition

Opportunities

Work Study Positions Available: No

Grant Funded Positions Available: No

Course-Credit Research Opportunities Available: No

Volunteer Research Positions Available: No

Biography

Sabrina Clarke is a composer, music theorist, and pianist based in Raleigh, North Carolina. She holds a PhD in Music Composition from Temple University's Boyer College of Music and Dance in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her doctoral dissertation explores how composer Luigi Dallapiccola's Canti di liberazione incorporates the narrative and temporal strategies of author James Joyce. Sabrina is also an alumnus of the European American Musical Alliance Summer Composition Institute (Paris, France), the Splice Institute for Electroacoustic Music, and McDaniel College (Westminster, Maryland). Sabrina's music has been performed across the United States and abroad. Recent works include “On Whale Beach: Dances for String Quartet,” commissioned by the Skyros Quartet; “Love Songs for Ada,” commissioned by the East Passyunk Opera Project and a Finalist Honorable Mention for the American Prize in Composition; and “a dark place is not a dark place,” commissioned by the Elysian Trombone Consort. Her work has been featured at conferences, festivals, and new music events including the Music by Women Festival; the Penn State New Music Festival; the Common Tone Music Festival; the Society of Composers (SCI) Region III festival; the University of Louisville New Music Festival; the International Trombone Festival; the Composer’s Voice Concert series; and the Geelvinck Fortepiano Festival in Amsterdam. Sabrina’s published research includes the book chapter “Synesthetic Associations and Gendered Nature Imagery: Female Agency in the Piano Music of Amy Beach” in A Century of Composition by Women: Music Against the Odds, eds. Kouvaras, Grenfell, and Williams (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2022). She has also contributed online essays for the Rutgers University Women and Music (WAM) Project and the College Music Society Symposium. She has presented her research at meetings of the Society for Music Theory (SMT); the American Musicological Society (AMS); the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic (MTSMA); the Women in the Creative Arts Conference at the Australian National University; the Music by Women Festival in Columbus, Mississippi; and the Amy Beach and Teresa Carreño Conference at the University of New Hampshire. Sabrina is an Assistant Professor of Music Theory and Composition at Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina. She has previously taught at West Chester University of Pennsylvania, the University of Delaware, Temple University, and the Wildflower Composers Festival (formerly the Young Women Composers Camp) in Philadelphia. Sabrina lives in Raleigh with her husband and two rescue dogs.

List of Publications

  • “Synesthetic Associations and Gendered Nature Imagery: Female Agency in the Piano Music of Amy Beach” in A Century of Composition by Women: Music Against the Odds, eds. Kouvaras, Grenfell, and Williams (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2022)