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Sara Donaldson started off as a creative-type.
Her father frequently tells the story of sitting at the piano one Sunday evening when Sara wasn’t quite three years old, holding on to her tiny finger and plunking out the notes to “Doe, a Dear.” The very next night, Sara dragged her father into the piano room excitedly, saying, “I got it, I got it!” sitting down to play the song by herself.
“I think we need to put her in lessons,” Sara’s father said.<p>At age seven, Sara started composing. At age 11, she picked up the cello. At age 15, she graduated the Suzuki Cello Method, and then picked up the guitar.
As a child, Sara was encouraged to name her compositions, typically referring to them as Opus 1, Opus 2, and so on. Occasionally she came up with a more creative name like “Raindrops,” also Opus 2, which depicts a rainstorm rolling in and out on the piano.
Known to skip out on recess during elementary school to go play the piano, she was quoted as a child saying, “Music is my playground.”
Her elementary, middle and high school years were filled not only with musical activities, but also with art and photography. College, however, was a different story.
Sara’s involvement with university organizations in college left little time for the arts. She quit the elite university chorale to pursue her student government “ambitions,” and set down her bow to make time for executive board meetings. There was a point where she looked at her expensive cello – it was sitting in the corner collecting dust – and contemplated selling it.
Enter: Kevin Rhoads.
“Funny how I attribute my return to music…to a boy,” she said.
Sara returned from her junior year Christmas break with cello in-hand. Her first night back, she found herself in Kevin’s candle-filled recording studio wearing headphones that blared Destinations Known’s song, “Your Love.” Kevin intended on Sara to play cello on the band’s album.
“I remember thinking, ‘Are you kidding? I don’t even know if I can remember Twinkle, Twinkle, and you want me to record?’ …Thankfully it went well.”<p>That spring semester, Sara dropped pre-med, switched her major to ADPR, picked up a course in painting, and started classical guitar lessons. She also picked up her musical pen and began composing again. This time, including lyrics. (She had a lot to say.)
Sara’s debut album has allowed her to come full-circle, “Back to the Beginning…” back to the music of her childhood. “Raindrops,” written on the piano at age seven, acquired words and turned into what is now “Drops of Rain.” Opus 6, written on the piano at age 12, was a perfect fit for the lyrics that refer to her student government years.
There is an honest simplicity to Sara’s music and artwork: much of it self-taught, all of it expressive.
The title of her self-produced album, “The Beginning,” refers to the notion that her CD is symbolic of a fresh start; a life forever inclusive of music and art.
Perhaps she is also telling us that this is the first of many more albums to come
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