Associate Dean for Innovation, Interdisciplinary Partnerships and Community Initiatives

As Associate Dean for Innovation, Interdisciplinary Partnerships and Community Initiatives at the Peabody Institute, Sarah Hoover has re-invigorated the institute’s historic engagement with organizations throughout Baltimore to bring music to new audiences and help students hone citizen artistry and career skills. She has shepherded the development of Peabody’s Breakthrough Curriculum and oversees the work of Peabody LAUNCHPad and the Office of Community Partnerships, advancing an integrated vision for career skill development, entrepreneurship and citizen artistry.

Named one of Musical America’s 30 Music Professionals of 2019 for her work linking music and medicine at Johns Hopkins, Hoover leads a variety of interconnected efforts across the university and hospital system to conduct research, develop therapies, bring music into clinical settings, and provide multi-disciplinary clinical care for musicians. She has shepherded the development of concert series and bedside music programs at Johns Hopkins Hospital as well as programs in creative aging and sensory-friendly performances through Peabody Prescribe’s arts for wellness division, all as part of a larger initiative of incorporating the performing arts into health and wellness as co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Music and Medicine. Her book, Music as Care: Artistry in the Hospital Environment, will be published in early 2021.

Prior to her appointment at Peabody, Hoover had a career as a performer, teacher of singing, and music journalist. Her writing has been published by the Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, Grove Dictionary of American Music, and Chamber Music magazine. From 2012 to 2015, she founded and directed the Oyster Bay Music Festival in Oyster Bay, NY, a grassroots experiment in community music that deconstructed the concert stage and broke down the boundaries between audience and performers.

Hoover is a graduate of Yale University and earned a Doctor of Musical Arts in Vocal Performance from Peabody. She received additional training in voice science and holds certificates in Arts in Medicine and Performing Arts Medicine.