Sara Gabalawi
Sara Gabalawi is a cellist with an eclectic international background. Born in Philadelphia, she has performed, worked, and studied in twenty-one countries and twenty-four American states. She earned her Bachelor of Music from the Peabody Conservatory (recipient of the Beatrice Feldman Kahn and Raymond S. Kahn Endowed Cello Scholarship) and a degree from Johns Hopkins University, later continuing her studies in Europe with a performance diploma from the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, and both a Master of Arts (cum laude) and a Postgraduate degree from the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. She also studied at the Manhattan School of Music with Fred Sherry on a full-tuition scholarship.
Sara has appeared with ensembles such as Ensemble Intercontemporain (Paris), the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Residentie Orkest (The Hague), and the Tucson Symphony, and has served as principal cellist under Péter Eötvös, Sir Roger Norrington, and at the Vermont Mozart Festival and in the Freixenet Symphony Orchestra (Santander) and Romanian Sinfonietta (Bucharest). Festival appearances include the Grachtenfestival, Cello Biënnale, Holland Festival, Lowlands Festival, Klara Festival (the Netherlands), Encuentro de Música de Santander (Spain), Festival Pablo Casals Prades (France), Festival George Enescu (Bucharest), Young Euro Classic - Berlin, Aurora Festival (Sweden), among others.
Her work spans both traditional and innovative projects, from premiering Harrison Birtwistle’s final work "An Old Man Asleep" (2021) to performing in “Traviata: Remixed” at Amsterdam’s Grachtenfestival and Lowlands. With the Brussels Contemporary Ensemble, she was in residence at the Sichuan Conservatory of Music (China), coaching and teaching composition students and performing at the Sun River Festival.
Sara has studied with teachers including Lorne Munroe, Derek Barnes, Ohad Bar-David, David Hardy, and Jeroen Reuling, and participated in masterclasses with Nicolas Altstaedt, Gary Hoffman, Jens-Peter Maintz, Miklós Perényi, and Pieter Wispelwey, among many others.
A passionate educator, Sara has taught cello and piano for over a decade, maintains a private studio, and has taught with the Harmony Program, City Strings & Piano, and Musical Mentors in New York City. She performs on an 1880 cello by Victor Joseph Charotte (Mirecourt, France) and a bow by Swiss master Johannes S. Finkel.