Singer Sarah (Keith) Chowning '99 Releases New CD, Discusses How Semester Abroad Instilled a Love of Irish Music

February 23, 2006

February 23, 2006, Greencastle, Ind. - "If given the opportunity, Sarah (Keith) Chowning would go back to Ireland tomorrow. Her love of traditional Irish music, its culture and its people keeps a part of her heart in Ireland," begins a profile of the 1999 DePauw University graduate in Go Triad, the arts supplement to the News & Record of Greensboro, North Carolina. "A native of San Francisco, Chowning lived most of her life in Greensboro before heading to the DePauw School of Music in Indiana. During her years there, she spent a semester in Ireland and discovered a deep-rooted love for the country's music." (photo at left courtesy Go Triad)

The newspaper notes that Chowning has just released a compact disc of Celtic music, Water of Life, and is teaching voice lessons at Holy Trinity Music School in Greensboro. "The album incorporates Celtic harp and Chowning's graceful vocals, the kind of music Chowning says she 'really believes in,'" the article points out. 

"My family's background is Scotch-Irish. It is always exciting to me for anyone to have a deep appreciation of where they come from," Sarah Chowning tells the News & Record. "When I attended DePauw School of Music, all of my peers were rushing off to semesters in Vienna, and I thought, 'I'll go to Ireland'; I've always listened to Irish music."

She adds, "I love music as much as I love people, and that is the reason why I perform and the reason why I teach: to reach people. None of us can really understand the effect of music. I consider it a huge blessing that I have the gifts I have."

Read the complete text at the newspaper's Web site.

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