Sarah Willis
Brass
Sarah Willis was born in Maryland, USA. Her father was a foreign correspondent and her family lived in the USA, Tokyo and Moscow before moving to England when she was 13. She began playing the horn aged 14 at school and then attended the Royal College of Music Junior Department. She went on to study full time at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where her teachers included Anthony Halstead and Jeff Bryant.
Sarah later studied with Fergus McWilliam in Berlin, where she became 2nd Horn in the Berlin State Opera under Daniel Barenboim in 1991. In 2001 she joined the Berlin Philharmonic, becoming the first female member of the brass section.
She has recorded various acclaimed CDs including works such as the Brahms Horn Trio and the Rosetti Double Horn Concertos as well as the much-celebrated CDs Opera! and Four Corners! with the Berlin Philharmonic Horns. Her latest solo album Horn Discoveries was released in 2014.
Sarah is involved in many of the Berlin Philharmonic education projects and especially enjoys creating and presenting Family Concerts. She also interviews conductors and soloists for the Digital Concert Hall and in 2011 she presented live to 33 million viewers during the Final Concert of the YouTube Symphony Orchestra. She is also a regular broadcaster and interviewer on TV and online and fronts the classical music programme Sarah’s Music for Deutsche Welle TV.
