Sarah Gromko’s voice encompasses the range of a fine dramatic actress, in turn conversational, sultry, emotional, and angelic.
—The Victory Review
Sarah Gromko’s husky vocals are a solid contribution…delivering an upper-echelon change of setting.
—Mark Sabbatini, All About Jazz
[Sarah’s] music is truly inspired/inspiring. [She is] such a complete musician.
—Javier Arau: Saxophonist, Acclaimed Educator, and DownBeat magazine and ASCAP Award winner
Compared with Sarah Vaughan, Patsy Cline, K.D. Lang, and Annie Ross by professional musicians and critics alike, Sarah Gromko’s vocals “show a deep sense of artistic maturity.” Her debut recording as a bandleader was nationally recognized as “intimate,” “eclectic,” and “undeniably killer.” The attention led to a licensing contract with Rescue Records (later under exclusive license with Universal Records).
Gromko’s live work focuses on original compositions and modern arrangements reminiscent of the fusion of jazz and rock in the ’60s when jazz harmony, syncopation, groove changes, and odd meters/phrasing melded into a new genre. Unlike the instrumental and synthetic direction fusion took into the 70s and 80s, she writes emotional melodies and lyrics that emphasize her wide vocal range and colors but focus the listener on the story more than the virtuosity of the songs’ individual players.
Over the years, Sarah has been recorded as a background singer, a featured jazz vocalist, and for both national and international commercials and TV spots (i.e. Showtime, PBS). Under her direction, Gromko’s jazz quartet held residencies at New York City’s Puppets Jazz Bar, Kavehaz/Mannahatta, and Blue Water Grill, and Pearl Wine Co. in New Orleans.
Sarah has been singing professionally since age 15 and has been trained vocally by teachers from the Metropolitan Opera, Broadway, and jazz stages. She has a film-scoring degree from Berklee College of Music, where she studied composition under Bob Pilkington, Richard Davis, Ruth Mendelson, and Vuc Kulenovic and vocal technique under Bob Stoloff, Maggie Stone, and Anne Pekham.
Most influential to her compositions however, has been her professional work with Wynton Marsalis and James Oliverio (orchestrations for All Rise), Howard Shore (on Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring), and her mentorship from entrepreneur, composer, vibraphonist, and bandleader Mike Mainieri of Steps Ahead (with whom she worked from 2008-2011 in New York and transcribed the Mike Mainieri Songbook).
Gromko also has worked professionally in the fields of choral conducting, music business, and education (www.gromkomusic.com). She served on the Executive Board of the American Federation of Musicians (AFM), New Orleans. During the pandemic, she relocated to New Haven, CT where she currently works as a speech-language pathologist specializing in voice.