Sarah Burke, DMA is in her 20th year at Blinn College, where she serves as Director of Bands and Director of Percussion Studies. She is also Principal Percussionist with the Brazos Valley Symphony Orchestra and has performed with the Lubbock and Big Spring Symphonies.
Burke has appeared as a featured soloist with the Brazos Valley Symphony Orchestra, Blinn College Band, Rutgers University Orchestra and Texas Tech University Orchestra. Her performance career has taken her to distinguished venues including Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, St. Bartholomew’s and St. Thomas’s in New York City.
An active guest artist and clinician, Burke has presented at the Texas Music Educators’ Association Convention, Texas Orchestra Directors’ Association Convention, Texas Tech University, the University of Arkansas, the College of Charleston, College Station’s Night of Percussion and numerous high schools throughout Texas. She has also served as a guest conductor and clinician for several Texas UIL ensembles, including the Region 8 Concert Band in 2018; Regions 18/26 and Region 13 Symphonic Bands in 2022; Region 23 Percussion Ensemble in 2024; and the CenTex Honor Band in 2025. She is scheduled to conduct the Texas UIL Region 27 Band in December 2026.
A founding member of Spindrift Percussion Group, Burke is an advocate for contemporary percussion music and has helped commission several new works for percussion quartet by composers including Kevin Bobo, Dave Skidmore, Blake Tyson and Steven Bryant. She also helped coordinate a commissioning project at Blinn College that resulted in Remembrance by Michael Burritt. The work was featured at a Blinn College TEDx event in May 2018, accompanied by a lecture performance titled Remembrance: A Cathartic Journey towards Peace and Healing, which is available on YouTube.
In addition to performing and teaching, Burke is an accomplished percussion composer and arranger. She has written arrangements for numerous high school and collegiate marching percussion programs and has created percussion ensemble arrangements of Eric Whitacre’s Sleep and A Boy and A Girl.
Burke’s principal teachers have included Alan Abel, percussion emeritus of the Philadelphia Orchestra; Bob Becker of NEXUS; Dr. Lisa Rogers, past president of the Percussive Arts Society; Alan Shinn; and She-e Wu, renowned marimbist and Innovative and Majestic Percussion Artist.
