Violinist Sarah Wood is an accomplished soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral leader. She has appeared as a soloist with the San Francisco Philharmonic, San Francisco Civic Symphony, and Music in the Mountains Festival Orchestra, among others, and was a founding member of the Circadian String Quartet. Her international performances have taken her to the Netherlands, Tunisia, Hungary, and Easter Island. Sarah has held titled positions with the Berkeley Symphony, California Symphony, and Greeley Philharmonic, and is currently a member of both the Oakland and San Jose Symphonies. She also performs regularly with the San Francisco Symphony as an extra musician and has received two Grammy Awards for her participation in recordings with Michael Tilson Thomas and Esa-Pekka Salonen.

Sarah holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in violin performance from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she served as a teaching assistant to Lina Bahn. She also earned her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music, studying with Paul Kantor and William Preucil. Additional mentors include Nathan Cole, Cathy van Hoesen, Zaven Melikian, and Robin Sharp.

A dedicated educator, Sarah has taught violin, viola, and chamber music for over 20 years. She served as Lina Bahn’s teaching assistant at the University of Colorado at Boulder from 2009-2013, and as faculty at the Crowden School from 2014–2016. She was recently appointed Director of String Orchestras for the Peninsula Youth Orchestra.

In addition to her musical pursuits, Sarah is a certified AmSAT teacher of the Alexander Technique, having completed her training in 2022. While completing her doctorate, she collaborated with Violinist in Balance at the Utrecht Conservatory in the Netherlands to design custom violin equipment, and has conducted extensive research on violin ergonomics.

Outside of music, Sarah enjoys hiking, studying California native plants, and grafting fruit trees.