Sara Dhillon

Headshot for Sara Dhillon

Sara Dhillon, composer, arranger, pianist, and bandleader has worked/collaborated or toured with various artists including Joss Stone, Geri Haliwell, Juliet Roberts, Talvin Singh, Kuljit Bhamra and Jocelyn Brown amongst others, playing at various venues including the Jazz Café, Ronnie Scotts, and the London Eventim Apollo. 
Sara was delighted to be asked to perform at Elton John's wedding accompanying Joss Stone, in front of an obviously star-studded audience including Sting, Kate Bush, Elvis Costello, Diana Krall, George Michael and of course Sir Elton himself. Sara has toured the UK playing keyboards for a reformed version of pop band Shakespears Sister and appeared at that year's Isle of Wight festival performing in front of a crowd of 6000 people in the Big Top.
Sara has composed music for TV and made her debut as a West End composer writing the music for a contemporary version of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" which debuted at the Noel Coward Theatre on St. Martin's Lane and was set in modern day India. The music composed for this production was a mixture of Jazz, Indian classical music, Hindi pop music and spiritual songs and received great reviews in the national press. Sara has also composed music for several festivals, been musical director for various projects and wrote the string arrangements for top-selling Bhangra/Hindi pop artist Sangeeta's penultimate album.
Sara was recently invited by the National Youth Jazz Orchestra to create/mentor and develop a 14-piece Afro-Cuban and Salsa ensemble to play the music authentically leading up to a sold-out debut gig at Ronnie Scotts in 2024 with Sara guesting as musical director. 
Sara currently teaches Jazz Piano and Jazz Ensemble at the RCM (Junior Department) and has led improvisation classes at the RCM Senior College.  She has lectured at Cambridge University and the Royal Holloway, University of London where she ran specialist music workshops.  Sara currently teaches Jazz Harmony, Jazz Workshops, Latin Piano, and Afro-Cuban Music Workshops at Morley College.  She also runs Latin Piano and History of Jazz Music Appreciation courses at City Lit.
Sara performs with her own Jazz trio including appearances at the London Jazz Festival, Banqueting House and Blenheim Palace. 

Faculties / departments: Junior Department


Contact

For enquiries please contact:

Junior Department Enquiries

jd@rcm.ac.uk

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