Promotional Material
Short biography (150 words):
Sara is a lute player and scholar who reenacts the
performances of musicians from Renaissance Europe. Her passion for the lute
developed through her childhood love of the classical guitar, which she
treasured through an upbringing which involved an extraordinary amount of
change. Of mixed Ukrainian and Lebanese heritage, Sara had experienced life in
three different continents even before her sixth birthday, living in cities
including London, Beirut, and Auckland, New Zealand. Her secondary education eventually
concluded at a specialist music school in the north of Scotland.
At university, Sara became the Royal Northern College of
Music’s first lute student. She then completed music degrees at the
Universities of Manchester and Oxford, before a doctorate at Durham. Her
scholarly research explores the rich culture of women’s lute playing in
Elizabethan and Jacobean England, including how women’s clothing influenced
performance and how musical accomplishment shaped young women’s
lives.
Sara Salloum is a Renaissance lute player and scholar who reenacts the performances of musicians – particularly women – from sixteenth and seventeenth-century Europe. She has performed in diverse settings including historic houses and castles, cathedrals, galleries and museums, opera houses and concert halls, cafés and bars. Her PhD brought her skills as a performing musician together with scholarship, and developed fresh and original methods for conducting historical and musical research.
Sara’s passion for the lute developed through her childhood love of the classical guitar, which she treasured through an upbringing which involved an extraordinary amount of change. Of mixed Ukrainian and Lebanese heritage, Sara had experienced life in three different continents even before her sixth birthday, living in cities including London, Beirut, and Auckland, New Zealand. A childhood that involved many different schools as her family moved between continents saw her secondary education conclude at a specialist music school in the north of Scotland.
When she moved from the guitar Sara became the Royal Northern College of Music’s first lute student, and began her studies with the internationally renowned lutenist Jacob Heringman. She also completed music degrees at the Universities of Manchester and Oxford, before a doctorate at Durham. Her research explores the rich culture of women’s lute playing in Elizabethan and Jacobean England, including how women’s clothing in the period influenced performance and how musical accomplishment shaped young women’s lives.
Sara now lives in North Yorkshire, where she applies her musicianship and scholarship to a broad range of projects including performance, university lecturing, and lute teaching, and she enjoys enrichening connections with fellow musicians and scholars.
