Creating unforgettable experiences that inspire
the artistic ecosystem.

About Sarah

Recently featured on PBS Newshour

An award winning curator and producer, Sarah Williams is known for her strong commitment to the development of creative works as well as reimagining existing work. Noted for her vision, Sarah has built an established and trusted network honoring all that the arts has to offer whether in opera, theater, symphony, or film. She celebrates the imagination and interrogation of the art, audiences, and organizational structures.

Sarah has worked with a wide range of artists including Bill T. Jones, Sasha Velour, Missy Mazzoli, Tiona Nekkia McClodden, Tyshawn Sorey, Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Courtney Bryan, Caroline Shaw, Yuval Sharon, Jennifer Higdon, Take 6, Sean Pecknold, Wayne Shorter, Lawrence Brownlee, Bernadette Peters, Esperanza Spalding, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Hannah Moscovitch, Matthew Placek, Terrance Hayes, and Angélica Negrón.

Recently featured on PBS Newshour

"Sarah Williams has a well-earned reputation as a powerhouse of fresh ideas and a savvy commissioner of new work." -Musical America

Works such as

The Island We Made

Music - Angélica Negrón
Film - Matthew Placek
Narrator - Sasha Velour
Vocals - Eliza Bagg
Harp - Bridget Kibbey

The Island We Made combines ethereal electronic music and the transformative art of drag lip-sync to explore familial relationships and a multi-generational depiction of “Mother.” A haunting lullaby formed from the memories and individual relationships of its collaborators.

"A gracious observation of love." - The New Yorker
"An enormity of feeling" - NPR
"Melancholy and meditative." - The New York Times

Cycles of My Being

Music - Tyshawn Sorey
Text - Terrance Hayes & Lawrence Brownlee
Tenor - Lawrence Brownlee
Violin - Randall Mitsuo Goosby
Cello - Khari Joyner
Clarinet - Alexander Laing
Piano - Kevin Miller & Myra Huang

Cycles of My Being is a song cycle that centers on what it means to be a Black man living in America today. The San Francisco Chronicle called it “a work of both anguish and optimism, at once accusatory and stirring...whose traversal feels like a descent into a maelstrom followed by the emergence out the other side.”

“These are divided times, but the goal of Cycles of My Being is neither to widen those rifts, nor to re-open old wounds,” Brownlee said. “The goal is foster mutual respect, understanding, and communication across races and generations. History unfolds in cycles, and with this work, we hope to balance the stark challenges of our present reality with a resolute resilience, and an unwavering hope for a better future.”

Mr. Hayes’ lyrics are from his book American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin.

Breaking the Waves

Music - Missy Mazzoli
Libretto - Royce Vavrek
Director - James Darrah
Conductor - Steven Osgood

"Breaking the Waves is among the best produced operas of the 21st century." - Opera News

Breaking the Waves is based on the 1996 Academy Award-nominated film by Lars von Trier. Set in the Scottish Highlands in the early 1970s, Breaking the Waves tells the story of Bess McNeill, a religious young woman with a deep love for her husband Jan, a handsome oil rig worker. When Jan becomes paralyzed in an off-shore accident, Bess’s marital vows are put to the test as he encourages her to seek other lovers and return to his bedside to tell him of her sexual activities. He insists that the stories will feel like they are making love together and keep him alive. Bess’s increasing selflessness leads to a finale of divine grace, but at great cost.

We Shall Not Be Moved

Music - Daniel Bernard Roumain
Text - Marc Bamuthi Joseph
Director, Choreographer, & Dramaturge - Bill T. Jones

*Listed as one of the best musical performances by the New York Times.

On the run after a series of tragic incidents, five North Philly teens find refuge in an abandoned, condemned house in West Philadelphia at the exact location that served as headquarters of the MOVE organization, where a 1985 standoff with police infamously ended with a neighborhood destroyed and 11 people dead, including five children. This self-defined family is assuaged and even inspired by the ghosts who inhabit this home and begin to see their squatting as a matter of destiny and resistance rather than urgent fear.

The Wake World

Music - David Hertzberg
Director - R.B. Schlather

*Winner of the Music Critics Association of North America Award

*Nominated for an International Opera Award

The Wake World is a hallucinatory choral fantasy. Based on a mystical fairy tale written by Aleister Crowley whilst under the influence of the Golden Dawn, the story describes an ecstatic journey of initiation through Hermetic runes, as Lola is lead by her fairy prince through a magical palace to enlightenment.

Sky on Swings

Music - Lembit Beecher
Text - Hannah Moscovitch
Director - Joanna Settle
Conductor - Geoffrey McDonald
Danny - Frederica von Stade
Martha - Marietta Simpson

Is there any grace in forgetting? This opera finds fleeting beauty in memory loss through an unflinching yet uplifting exploration of living with Alzheimer’s disease.

We Need To Talk

Music - Caroline Shaw
Text - Anne Carson
Director - Maureen Towey
Soprano - Ariadne Greif

The film creates an environment filled with tension and energy, amplified by Shaw’s inclusion of electronic composition and sampling of old film scores. A young woman is in conversation with herself, reminiscent of our isolated days of quarantine: days of frustration, joy, and grief

Denis and Katya

Music - Phillip Venables
Director & Text - Ted Huffman

"An intimate, haunting triumph." - The New York Times
*Winner of the Fedora Generali Prize
*International Opera Award Finalist

They could have been your teenage children, best friends, or classmates. Two beautiful 15-year-olds who lived every moment−including their last−online. What led to their violent deaths? Why did they choose to broadcast their final moments on social media? And what does it say about the voyeuristic society who watched, liked, and objectified them, transforming two kids into clickbait?
The work uses verbatim text to examine the vast public response to the events surrounding the tragedy of Russian runaways Denis Muravyov and Katya Vlasova, exploring how stories are shaped and shared in our age of trolls, conspiracy theories, fake news, and 24/7 digital connection.

Save the Boys

Music - Tyshawn Sorey
Text - Francis Ellen Watkins Harper
Countertenor - John Holiday

Inspired by “Save the Boys,” an 1887 poem by abolitionist, writer and Black women’s rights activist Frances Ellen Watkins Harper.

Creating unforgettable experiences that inspire the artistic ecosystem.

About Sarah

Recently featured on PBS Newshour

"Sarah Williams has a well-earned reputation as a powerhouse of fresh ideas and a savvy commissioner of new work." -Musical America

Works such as

Collaborations

Creating unforgettable experiences that inspire
the artistic ecosystem.