Kristin Sarvela
Kristin Sarvela, DMA
Assistant Professor, Oboe and Music Theory
School of Music | 936.294.1360 | kas192@shsu.edu
Division | Woodwinds
Dr. Kristin Sarvela joined the faculty of Sam Houston State University as Assistant Professor of Oboe and Music Theory in Fall of 2021. Her previous appointments include Instructor of Oboe and Music Theory at Eastern Illinois University and Instructor of Oboe at the University of Illinois at Springfield. Dr. Sarvela has an active performing career and has held many orchestral positions including principal oboe of the Camerata Sinfonietta in Charleston, Illinois, principal oboe of the Danville Symphony Orchestra, second oboe in the Sinfonia da Camera in Champaign, Illinois, and an oboist and English horn player in the Heartland Festival and Southern Illinois Symphony Orchestras. She has also performed with a number of other orchestras including Opera in the Heights, the Owensboro Symphony Orchestra, the Lafayette Symphony Orchestra, the Illinois Symphony Orchestra, the Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra, and the Kankakee Symphony Orchestra. She has participated in Le Domaine Forget, Ad Astra, Madeline Island, Outside the Box, and Southern Illinois Summer Music Festivals, and has performed with such artists as Menahem Pressler, Emmanuel Ax, Marvin Hamlisch, and the Mark Morris Dance Group. She has performed in such halls as the Schermerhorn Symphony Center and Carnegie Hall. Along with oboe and English horn, she plays the piano, and also dabbles in the Baroque oboe, shawm, and the harp.
Dr. Sarvela has taught sectionals, master classes, and private lessons throughout the mid-west and Texas, and has spent many years working with the Bocal Majority Summer Double Reed Camp, the Eastern Music Camp, the Southern Illinois University Band Camp, and the University of Illinois Double Reed Camp. She has presented at the Texas Bandmasters Association Convention, the Art of Teaching Music Workshop in Dallas, the Illinois Music Educators Conference, the Music by Women Festival, and the International Double Reed Society Convention.
Dr. Sarvela received her Bachelors degree in 2012, in Oboe Performance at the University of Illinois with a Minor in Math and a Masters Degree in 2014, in Oboe Performance at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University with a Masters Minor in Music History. She completed her Doctorate of Musical Arts in Oboe Performance and Literature at the University of Illinois, with a Cognate in Musicology in 2017. Her doctoral document is entitled "The Oboe Compositions of Kalevi Aho, Riikka Talvitie, and Osmo Tapio Räihälä," focusing on the works of three contemporary Finnish composers. Her primary teachers include John Dee, Linda Strommen, Roger Roe, Edward Benyas, Phillip Ross, and Cally Banham.