Second Bassoon
Sandra completed her B.M at Northwestern University's Bienen School of Music where she studied with Chris Millard, Lewis Kirk, and David McGill. She is currently finishing her graduate studies at DePaul University under Bill Buchman.
A dedicated orchestral musician, she has attended the Castleton Music Festival, the Brevard Music Festival, Musik Akademie Westfalen, Orchestra De la Francophone, Aspen Music Festival and School, and the National Repertoire Orchestra. She has won and placed in many competitions such as the Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship, Brevard Music Festival's Jan and Beattie Wood Concerto Competition, Evanston Music competition, Skokie Valley Concerto Competition and Hellam Concerto Competition. She won second place in the National 2014 Meg Quigley Vivaldi Competition and was first place winner in the 2014 American Protégé International Concerto Competition where she performed the Hummel Bassoon Concerto in F Major in December at Carnegie Hall. She won the Northwestern University Wind Symphony Concerto Competition, performing the Gordon Jacob Concerto fall 2015. In 2016, she was a scholarship winner of the Musicians Club of Women Jerome and Elaine Nierenberg Foundation Scholarship and the NCSC Army Band National Collegiate Competition where she performed the Gordon Jacob Concerto with “Pershing’s Own” United States Army Band on the West Steps of the U.S Capitol. She frequently plays with neighboring orchestras including the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Illinois Symphony, Elgin Symphony, Arkansas Symphony and New World Symphony Orchestra.
In June 2016, She won the position of Principal Bassoon in the Kwazulu-Natal Philharmonic in Durban, South Africa where she spent six months as a full-time contracted musician. She now resides in Chicago, Illinois as the Principal Bassoonist of the Chicago Sinfonietta and Second Bassoonist in the Arkansas Symphony in Little Rock, Arkansas. She is a member of the Second City Winds, a Chicago based wind quintet.
