Dr. Sarah Rushing, NCTM

Dr. Sarah Rushing, NCTM is Assistant Professor of Piano at West Texas A&M University, where she teaches applied piano, class piano, and piano pedagogy. Rushing’s commitment to teaching is evidenced through her years of experience teaching private and group piano classes in both the community and university settings in Louisiana, New York, Colorado, Virginia, and Texas. Rushing has been an active member of Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) since 2009, serving as a faculty advisor, local competitions coordinator, and adjudicator for various regional and state competitions. In 2017, Rushing led the University of Colorado Boulder Collegiate Chapter of MTNA to receive the prestigious Collegiate Chapter of the Year Award. 

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In addition to her teaching duties at WT, Rushing is actively involved in training up the next generation of piano teachers; she serves as co-director of the WT Music Academy, co-advisor for the WT Collegiate Chapter of MTNA, and co-director of the Grace Hamilton Piano Festival. Passionate about continuing education opportunities for all teachers, Rushing is a frequent presenter at state and national conferences, recently appearing at the Virginia Music Teachers Association State Conference, the MTNA Piano Pedagogy Symposium, the Colorado State Music Teachers Association State Conference, the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy, the MTNA National Conference, and the Group Piano/Piano Pedagogy Forum. Rushing has also served as the MTNA South Central Certification Commissioner since 2021, grading applications and advocating for the prestigious Nationally Certified Teacher of Music designation. She also serves her profession by writing CD and book reviews for American Music Teacher, Piano Magazine, and the Association for Recorded Sound Collections Journal.

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As a performer, Rushing enjoys playing music off the beaten path and has appeared in competitions and recitals throughout the US. In 2013, she was featured on American Public Media’s “Performance Today.” Other radio appearances include a live broadcast on KGNU in Boulder, CO. Rushing enjoys collaborating with colleagues and has recently been engaged with the North American Saxophone Alliance, the Flute New Music Consortium, and College Music Society. 2022 saw the formation of two unique trio projects (violin, saxophone, piano & soprano, horn, piano), with whom Rushing will be touring the southern states in 2023.

Before moving to Texas in 2020, Rushing was an Instructor of Piano at Virginia Tech. She completed the Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Colorado Boulder in the studio of David Korevaar, where her research focused on the music of Johannes Brahms and Claude Debussy. She earned the Masters of Music in Piano Performance degree from Ithaca College, where she studied with Jennifer Hayghe. A Louisiana native, Rushing attended Louisiana State University to pursue the Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance degree, where her teachers included Willis Delony and Gregory Sioles.

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When not teaching and performing, Rushing enjoys hiking, running, and enjoying the great outdoors, which has taken her to numerous hike peaks in the US and abroad, including 17 mountains above 14,000 feet in Colorado and a trek to Mount Kilimanjaro in the summer of 2022.