Dr. Sarah Dunbar-Moon

Assistant Professor of Saxophone
(256) 282-5577
sdunbar2@jsu.edu  

Dr. Sarah Dunbar is an active performer, educator, and researcher who serves as Assistant Professor of Saxophone at Jacksonville State University. Equally at home in classical and jazz performance, she has performed throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe, earning awards in ten international competitions on saxophone and flute. Her performances include appearances at Carnegie Hall in New York City and the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn, Germany. She has performed with numerous ensembles, including the North Texas Wind Symphony, UNT Two O’Clock Lab Band, Wichita Falls Symphony Orchestra, and Lone Star Wind Orchestra. Her international engagements include a featured jazz solo performance at the 2024 North American Saxophone Alliance (NASA) Biennial Conference in Stillwater, Oklahoma; a solo recital at the 2023 World Saxophone Congress in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain; and performances at several U.S. Navy Band International Saxophone Symposiums and the NASA Biennial Conferences. She also performs regularly with the Carrollton Jazz Orchestra and has appeared in musical theatre productions with Red Mountain Theatre.

In addition to her performing career, Dr. Dunbar is an active researcher in performing arts health, with a particular interest in musicians’ health and the physical demands of instrumental performance. She holds a certification in Performing Arts Medicine from the Performing Arts Medicine Association (PAMA) and has presented her research at PAMA International Symposiums in London, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Her research on facial muscle activation across woodwind instruments, conducted in collaboration with the University of North Texas Health Science Center and the Texas Center for Performing Arts Health, received second prize in the research competition at the 2019 PAMA International Symposium. Her recent scholarship includes the 2026 publication “Health Promotion in Tertiary Music Institutions: A Position Paper” in Arts Education Policy Review, as well as research on the role of studio faculty in musicians’ health advocacy. She also developed Testing the Limits: Arts Health and the Creative Artist, an undergraduate core curriculum course approved by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

Dr. Dunbar earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Multiple Woodwinds and Performance, with a related field in Performing Arts Health, and a Master of Music degree in Multiple Woodwinds and Performance, with a related field in Music Education, from the University of North Texas. She also holds a Bachelor of Music degree with a double major in Jazz Studies and Classical Saxophone Performance from UNT and completed additional studies at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. Before joining Jacksonville State University in 2023, she served as Assistant Professor of Woodwinds at Midwestern State University in Texas. At JSU, she teaches applied saxophone, chamber music, saxophone choir, and Class Woodwinds, drawing on her experience performing on five woodwind instruments: saxophone, flute, clarinet, oboe, and bassoon.

Dr. Dunbar is an endorsing artist for SYOS (Shape Your Own Sound), where she performs on her custom signature mouthpiece, as well as Légère Reeds and Conn-Selmer Inc.