Sarah Mellander, oboe/English horn, was born and raised in upstate New York. She received her B.A. in music from Carleton College, where she graduated magna cum laude and with honors in musical performance. Ms. Mellander holds her M.M. in oboe performance from the Eastman School of Music, and is currently pursuing her DMA at the University of Colorado, where she received honorable mention in the 2006 Honors Competition. She is a member of the Arundo Winds, the graduate woodwind quintet in residence at CU, with whom she won first prize in the Plowman Chamber Music Competition and a silver medal in the wind division of the 2006 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. She is the principal oboist of the Fort Collins Symphony and a member of the Boulder Philharmonic and Central City Opera orchestras. In addition, she performs regularly with the Colorado Symphony and Colorado Springs Philharmonic. Her extensive orchestral experience has also included performances with the Binghamton Philharmonic, Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, numerous college ensembles, and the Rochester Philharmonic Youth Orchestra. Ms. Mellander has been performing with woodwind quintets since she was 13 years old, when she became a member of the Hochstein Memorial Music School’s scholarship woodwind quintet in Rochester, NY. As a soloist, she has performed concerti with the Finger Lakes Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, the Carleton College orchestra, and the CU Boulder Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Mellander’s teachers have included Peter Cooper, Richard Killmer, Merilee Klemp, Andreas Lorenz, Laura Griffiths, and Cindy Watson-Sporrel. She has participated in summer festivals at the Brevard Music Center, Round Top, and the National Repertory Orchestra.