Sara Stevens
Zur
music education: research, innovation, and joyful creation
How we define musicality matters! What does being “Musical” mean to you?
Sara Stevens Zur
Sara is an expert music teacher and innovative thinker, uniquely positioned to write about musicality. As an undergraduate at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University Bloomington, Sara was among a few select members of the International Vocal Ensemble chosen to travel to South Africa to present innovative approaches for choral singing at the International Seminar of Music Education. in 2003, sara received a fulbright grant to research music teaching and learning in aboriginal communities in australia, where she worked with an aboriginal teenaged rock band.
Respect for culturally diverse and child-centered methods of music teaching continued to be at the forefront of Sara’s work as a doctoral student at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she researched musical play and creativity as cultural expressions of childhood. Sara has presented her work in the UK, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Greece, Israel, Australia, and throughout the united states.
Sara has experience teaching music across a wide variety of ages and spaces including home settings and parks, preschools, camp settings, and three different elementary schools. Sara supervised student teachers in music education, led a Multicultural Vocal Ensemble, and taught “Creativity and Problem Solving” and “Music in Childhood” as an adjunct professor. While living in Israel, Sara taught courses on world music pedagogy and early childhood music education methods at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. She also taught classes for babies and toddlers composed of Palestinians and Jews.
Sara currently teaches music at the Buckingham, Browne & Nichols school in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She continues to push boundaries, question norms, and makes discoveries with her students about the many ways that music lives inside us.
Reclaiming Music Project
Recognizing and believing in our own musicality puts us in touch with what is most meaningful in our hearts. Being in touch with our musicality gives us a sense of “home” within ourselves and helps us to understand our own humanness in the face of change and uncertainty. We all long to feel musical, yet very few people dare to call themselves a “musical” person.
what does being “musical” mean to you? do you feel “musical?” What led you to think that way?
sara is collecting stories and wants to hear yours!
Share your story with Sara
Publications
written with elissa Johnson-green, this paper explores children’s use of music as a transitional object
based on my research as a fulbright scholar in australia, this paper illuminates why “research” can be an inapplicable western term.
“I Got a Song Spark!” Recording Young Children’s Invented Songs
about my radio project: students recorded and shared their own song inventions. published in teaching music, April 2024
israel’s “Junkyard” playgrounds are an invention of kibbutz life. The creativity and musicality that exists in these spaces is unparalleled. published by meryc in 2017
my chapter in this book describes musical free play and time experience in relation to creativity in young children in singapore, darwin, australia, and new york city
Cultural Perspectives of Experienced Time: An Investigation of Children’s Music Making in Schools and Communities in Three Countries
My dissertation, published in 2007, available through proQuest
This is a children’s picture book! A strange and true story!
Workshops & Classes
For Kids
For Adults
- baby and toddler music classes in your home or public community space
- folk dances from around the world
- story theater (creating dramatic stories and games based on picture books and folk tales)
- family folk dancing
- explore your natural singing voice
- your musical baby
- community singing events
Contact me for more information or to set up a session: sara.s.zur@gmail.com