Scholarship Recipient Update – Sage Po

22-year-old harpist Sage Po appeared on From the Top with Host Christopher O’Riley on Show 199, recorded in June 2009. On the show, she received From the Top’s Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award. Here is what she has been up to since then, along with some of her thoughts on how the award has impacted her life.

Meet Sage

Sage Po earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Music as well as her Music Education Certification from Carnegie Mellon University where she studied with Gretchen Van Hoesen, Principal Harp of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. As part of her music education degree, she took a year-long conducting class and has recently been putting her training to work through her new position as Assistant Conductor for Music in the Mountains Youth Orchestra. She currently resides near her family in Northern California.

It is important to Sage to instill a love of music in her students, and she seeks to do so through her role as an educator at an elementary school and as a private instructor for a growing studio of young harpists. She also enjoys performing in various concerts in the area and has even been known to play the Celtic Harp on occasion.

What The Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award Meant To Sage

“I was 14 when I received the Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award.  I used the money for two major trips. First, for harpists, France has a rich pedagogical history.  I was able to attend a three week program in Alsace called MusicAlta where I studied with classical harpist Ghislaine Petit-Volat. While there I was also able to study with jazz harpist Magali Zsigmond during a homestay in La Rochelle, France. The second trip I attended was to go to the American Harp Society Conference in the US where I met with many American harp teachers from universities and conservatories, and participated in master classes, a competition, and workshops. It was eye opening to go to another country where they speak a different language, and yet we still have that common connection through music. Because I was able to meet with different harp teachers from colleges and universities, I met Ms. Van Heusen from Pittsburgh, and she ended up being my harp teacher all through college! So obviously I feel strongly that the money had a huge impact on me.

Being on From the Top and receiving the scholarship also had a huge impact on me in terms of developing my love of giving back to the community. When I received this award it really made me feel grateful and want to give back, especially because we learned during our time with From the Top about how to give presentations in schools and how to bring our music out there to help others. That ended up being something I continued to do throughout college and I still do outreach work to this day. During every college vacation, I’d do benefit concerts for the homeless shelter, the local foodbank, for kids in schools, and I’ve even had the chance to play in our local hospital for patients in the cancer ward while they are receiving chemotherapy.”

• – Sage Po

Learn more about Sage and listen to her From the Top debut by clicking here. 

Sage maintains her own website which can be found here: Sage’s Website