For those unaware, Sarah Pillow’s musical life has been shaped by curiosity. From an early age, she was drawn to a wide range of musical worlds, moving easily between jazz, classical music, opera, early music, sacred music, and progressive rock in search of new artistic connections.

As a teenager, she was already performing professionally when recordings by Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald sparked a lasting fascination with jazz. The summer of her 18th year, Sarah appeared at the Montreux Jazz Festival, an experience that also earned her recognition from DownBeat Magazine and was an early indication of her talent for navigating new musical territory.

That spirit of exploration led her from jazz studies in Santa Cruz - alongside future jazz luminaries Donny McCaslin and Kenny Wollesen - to the Oberlin Conservatory, where she immersed herself in classical repertoire while continuing to perform jazz professionally. After settling in New York City, she became part of a vibrant artistic community that carried her from choral singing and modern dance projects to collaborations with early music specialists in both the United States and England.

Rather than choosing a single musical path, Sarah embraced them all. Her recordings and performances have ranged from jazz and sacred music to historically informed early music, often bringing the spontaneity of one tradition into another. As co-founder of Buckyball Music, she further expanded her creative independence, producing projects that crossed stylistic and historical boundaries.

Whether performing medieval drama, contemporary opera, sacred music, or jazz, Sarah has remained guided by the same impulse: to follow the music wherever it leads.

Her newest album The Wanderer reflects that lifelong wanderlust, moving from jazz standards to the adventurous music of Charles Mingus, Pat Metheny, and Chick Corea before arriving at the dreamlike landscapes of Nature Boy and Wayfarin’ Stranger. Throughout her career, Sarah has found that the richest discoveries often emerge where traditions, eras, and genres meet.

1. Blue Skies [Irving Berlin]
2. So Many Stars [Sergio Mendez]
3. A Night in Tunisia [Dizzy Gillespie]
4. Duke Ellington’s Sound of Love [Charles Mingus]
5. How High the Moon [Morgan Lewis & Nancy Hamilton]
6. Tonight at Noon [Charles Mingus]
7. The First Circle [Pat Metheney & Lyle Mays]
8. Café [Egberto Gismonti]
9. Stella by Starlight [Victor Young & Ned Washington]
10. Eclipse [Charles Mingus]
11. 500 Miles High [Chick Corea]
12. Nature Boy [Eden Ahbez]
13. Wayfarin’ [Stranger Anonymous]

This album of some eclectic, some more well-known jazz standards on the theme of astral and nomadic wanderers opens on the decadent twirls and swirls of Blue Skies and the affecting beauty of So Many Stars and then we get the vivacious A Night in Tunisia, a emotive rendition of Duke Ellington’s Sound of Love and the flourishing How High the Moon, before we are gifted the spirited fare of Tonight at Noon.

Along next is the lushly smooth The First Circle and the soulfully ambient Café and they are in turned backed seamlessly by the all-embracing rhythms that drive Stella by Starlight, the impassioned balladry of Eclipse and the playfully flirtatious 500 Miles High, the set rounding out on a resounding dutiful, percussion-driven version of Nature Boy, coming to a close on the delightful Wayfarin’.

Sarah Pillow @ Facebook