A cellist’s journey, rooted in New York

If you spend any time playing chamber music in the New York area, it becomes clear that there is a community of players who share a common bond: They went to the High School of Music and Art—the original one, on West 135th Street in Manhattan, before it evolved into LaGuardia High School.

While many of Music and Art’s graduates went on to notable professional careers, many, if not more, have carried on that musical tradition even as they pursued other lines of work.

Sara Langbert is one of those musicians.

A “total New Yorker” by her own description, Sara graduated from Music and Art and continued her musical education at Queens College in her native New York borough.

But like many ACMP members, she would put her cello aside as she managed the demands of raising a family and pursuing a career in computers and technology. 

Today she is the mother of 25-year-old boy-girl twins and a 30-year-old daughter, as well as stepmother to two sons in their early 40s.

But even as navigated the demands of life, the music always stayed with Sara. About 15 years ago, with her family more grown, Sara returned to the instrument she had loved since childhood—a transition she describes as far from effortless.

“It took quite a while for me to get it back,” she recalls, and to this day she continues taking lessons.

Sara plays in a piano trio and a string quartet, performs regularly with musicians she has met through ACMP, and spends part of each summer playing chamber music at a house in the Berkshires.

She is also a devoted participant in Winterhaven, an intensive winter chamber music workshop for adults held at Avaloch Farm in southern New Hampshire, where small groups of musicians spend a week mastering a single movement of music under expert coaching.

Sara serves on nonprofit boards alongside fellow musicians she has met through the chamber music world, a testament to how deeply the art form has woven itself into her social and civic life as well as her musical one.

We recently talked with Sara about her life in chamber music. Our conversation has been edited for conciseness and clarity. –Bob Goetz

When did you join ACMP?

I think it was about 10 or 15 years ago. I was playing in a chamber group, and one of the members said that if everybody joined ACMP, we could apply for a coaching grant. So we all joined, and that’s how I got to know about ACMP. We did get a coach—she was a professional pianist who worked with our piano trio—and it was wonderful. She tuned us into listening in a different way and taught us how to communicate and play together as an ensemble.

Do you have favorite composers for chamber music?

I really love whatever piece I’m playing the most while I’m currently playing it. Right now, I’m working on Brahms and Mozart and loving both of them, but I love Haydn, I love Beethoven, I love Bartók—I love everybody, really. My favorite line is that whoever I’m playing, you can just tell: He knew what he was doing when he wrote this stuff.

Do you have a happy chamber music moment?

The first thing that comes to mind is performing in a cello quartet at Winterhaven—we played a Goltermann cello quartet, and I was first cellist. Afterward, my teacher came up to me and said, “I’m so proud of you, you played so well,” and I just thought: I’ve arrived. I was so happy.

I have another one, too, and it really shows what ACMP can do. I was in a string quartet with someone I met through ACMP, and it turned out he had high school kids, I had high school kids, and our violinist had high school kids, too. We got everyone together and played the Brandenburg with our kids and us, all the generations together, right in my living room. That was a great moment.

What has chamber music given you beyond the music itself?

Winterhaven, in particular, has been a gift—it’s only 24 people each session, completely inclusive, and you really get to dive deep, working on just one movement of a piece for an entire week until you truly master it. It has taught me how to be a more effective player. And more broadly, chamber music has connected me to people I never would have met otherwise and to lasting friendships, including fellow board members I first got to know through playing together.

Editor’s note: If you’d like to meet Sara at Winterhaven, the application deadline is September 1!