Program
CPE Bach, Sonata in G Major, “Hamburger”, Wq. 133
- Allegretto
- Rondo Presto
Lowell Libermann, Sonata for Flute and Piano, Op. 23
- Lento con Rubato
- Presto Energico
Olivier Messiaen, Vocalise-Etude
Olivier Messiaen, Le Merle Noir
Charles Marie Widor, Suite for Flute and Piano, Op. 34
About the Performer
Sara Kornfeld Simpson is a first year PhD candidate in Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT. She graduated Summa Cum Laude from Boston University (BU) in 2018 with a dual degree, triple major in Neuroscience, Flute and Oboe Performance. She was named the BU Harry Hung Sheng Chou Trustee Scholar and a Davidson Fellow Laureate. Sara served as vice president of Nu Rho Psi, BU's Neuroscience Honor Society and published in two BU journals, The Nerve and the WR: Journal of the CAS Writing Program. In 2016, Sara conducted her first neuroscience research at an NSF REU program at the Scripps Research Institute and was funded to present her poster at the Association for Chemoreception Sciences 39th Annual Conference, where she was named a finalist for the AChemS Undergraduate Research Award. She received the Mary Erskine Undergraduate Research Award from BU’s UROP program to fund her study of learning and memory in Jeffrey Gavornik’s lab, and successfully defended her senior thesis on this research. She received the Dean’s Award for Academic Excellence (highest GPA in the graduating class) from BU’s College of Fine Arts, and in 2017 was inducted into Pi Kappa Lambda, the music honor society. In her free time, Sara enjoys attending the BSO, exploring Boston on foot, and performing her music for retirement communities and on stages around the world, from the Berlin Philharmoniker to the Lincoln Center.
Sara began studying piano at age 4, flute at age 10, and oboe at age 11. Throughout high school, she performed in the San Diego Youth Symphony and many honor bands and orchestras, including the National Honor Concert Band, which was her Kennedy Center Debut. She returned to this stage in summer 2014 as a member of the NSO’s Summer Music Institute. At BU, Sara studied flute with Linda Toote and oboe with Mark McEwen, performed with the BU Wind Ensemble, Chamber and Symphony Orchestras, and chamber music ensembles, and presented junior and senior recitals on both instruments. Sara was a YoungArts winner in Classical Music/Flute in both 2014 and 2015, toured Europe with the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra in summer 2015, and performed with the Nova Scotia Symphony in the summers of 2015 and 2016. In 2017, she made her Jazz at Lincoln Center debut as the invited soloist for Society for Science and the Public’s Alumni Event. She is now privileged to study flute with Elizabeth Ostling, associate principal flute of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
