This month we welcome our new Minister of Music Dr. Sarah England Baab, who has diverse experience in music education and a passion for using music to connect people with one another and the Lord. She is a historical musicologist specializing in American music.
Sarah earned her bachelor’s degree in Music Performance from West Chester University; and her master’s degree from the University of Maryland College Park. She spent years in a diverse number of settings, working with students of all ages, teaching private piano and voice lessons. As well, she’s taught courses in music at University of Maryland College Park, University of Maryland Baltimore College, and Towson University and is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Rowan University and the University of Delaware. Prior to joining St Matthew, she served as Music Director at Kemble Memorial United Methodist Church in Woodbury, which she joined some six years ago as the church was preparing for its 130th anniversary celebration.
She is a member of the American Musicological Society; the Society of American Music; and the Society of Ethnomusicology.
In pursuing her Doctorate degree at the University of Maryland, Sarah conducted research focusing on the intersections of race, gender, and politics in popular music of the late nineteenth an early twentieth centuries. Her doctorate dissertation explored the life and works of Golden Age songwriter Harold Arlen as a lens through which to better understand complex narratives surrounding Tin Pan Alley and race.
Arlen (1905-1986) was the beloved American songwriter best known for composing the songs for “The Wizard of Oz”, “Get Happy”, and “Stormy Weather”. In 1944 he and E.Y. Harberg composed the Broadway musical “Bloomer Girl”, based on an unpublished play by writer Daniel Lewis James and his wife Lilith. The play centers around the time of the American Civil War and focuses on the highly independent daughter of a hoop skirt manufacturer, Evelina Applegate, who defies her father’s orders in favor of the more comfortable bloomers (i.e. pants) advocated by her aunt Dolly, who was herself inspired by women’s rights advocate Amelia Bloomer.
Sarah is currently building off her graduate work and writing more about the Bloomer Girl.
“In society at the time, women were wearing these gigantic hoops. The musical was performed on the eve of World War II, so there was a lot of political commentary, because the musical was set in the 1800s,” Sarah said.
Her writing discusses the connection between that particular musical and the legacy of the minstrel show. Bloomer Girl includes a scene with a performance of Uncle Tom’s cabin and there is a musical setting of it in The King and I. “So I actually just wrote about both of those musical settings and how they relate to the minstrel show setting.”
Originally, Sarah planned to study chant in graduate school. She was interested in the medieval period, hoped to do work in French material and in works done at the turn of the 20th century. She chose the University of Maryland because of two professors who have unique expertise in chant.
“One of things about the University of Maryland at College Park is you have is access to so many great American music archives, because of your proximity to Washington DC. Because I had so much access to many great archive materials, in particular the Library of Congress. A faculty member suggested I look for bodies of work available locally. This member said, ‘There are so many good resources in American music. Would you like to do a master’s project that has something to do with American music?’ “
“I started to look within American music. I always loved The Wizard of Oz and had recently picked up a biography on Harold Arlen and was reading more about Bloomer Girl. I thought it was such a provocative, progressive work for the time. His musical style was so interesting, because it was so disparate from what other people were writing at the time. His voice is very different from, say, Rogers and Hammerstein, for example. So, I got into American music incidentally. Then it became my passion.”
In continuing her work, Sarah spends time in American musical theater and conducts research at the Library of Congress; New York Public Library Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives; and Yale University Archives.
“As a music historian, one of the things that is of interest to me is the way our worship practices have changed with regard to music over time, “ Sarah said. “Over time and, of course, as the church has proliferated down into many different denominations you see different approaches to worship and how they all speak to the moment in time. It interests me. I think having the historic purview of how music has been used in worship in so many historic settings historically forms how I approach and select music for worship.”
Sarah began her life in music in the church.
“I was singing at home, and in the choir at school. I was very upset, because it was the only class I was getting a B grade in, because I was not singing out. My parents were frustrated, because I was singing so much at home. They had a Charlotte Church CD at the time that I loved. She was my idol. My parents put me in the church choir to encourage me to sing more. I grew up being the only kid in our church choir. Our church did not have a children’s choir. So, I started singing with the adults.
“It was just amazing. I feel like the ladies of the church choir encouraged me and took care of me. Our music director was fabulous. Because I loved in northern New Jersey we had musicians come out from New York. For a while we had some section leaders who came from The Julliard School. So I got to work with really great musicians at the church.”
As a teenager Sarah participated in a pilgrimage to Europe where she sang at the Vatican, Notre Dame, and in several places in Germany while attending a World Youth Day event. “I got to sing in all these different places and I felt like the church choir and singing to God opened me up.”
Sarah lives in Cherry Hill with her husband and four children. She is a published author, loves cooking and art, particularly Impressionist painters.