is an eternal optimist who is passionate about the early years of a child's life and learning. Sarah is blazing a trail for a new approach to music education for the very young child, the Treehouse Music Method, which combines her two areas of expertise—music and literacy—in a single program.

Using her signature approach, the Treehouse Music Method, which merges the very best of early childhood educational methodology—Montessori and Reggio-Emilia—with two rich music education schools of pedagogy, Kodaly and Orff, the foundation is laid for musicianship, as well as early reading, writing, speaking, and listening, during the most important years of your child's life, preparing them early-on to continue their learning in these areas when they reach Kindergarten.

After teaching early childhood/Pre-K in a Reggio-Emilia classroom environment, then teaching special education as a traditional public school classroom teacher, Sarah began to teach early childhood music, but found that the programs available were lacking a foundation of serious education, and were more like entertainment than the rich learning she was used to as a classroom teacher.

Now, over a decade later, Treehouse Music School is the first program of its kind for very young children to actually teach, implicitly and explicitly, both music and literacy!

Sarah is an educator-performer who, when singing, specializes in Italian baroque music (music from the 17th century). Even when she's singing, her passion still remains the union of text and melodic gesture (fancy words for literacy and music). You can hear Sarah's interpretations of Barbara Strozzi's 17th-century compositions at sarahhawkey.com. Sarah also teaches voice. For more about her voice studio, visit sarahhawkeystudio.com.