FALL 2026 Ransom Everglades LOG 13 The daughter of an artist and a doctor who were classical music lovers, Sierra and her family were “bohemian New Yorkers in a slightly alien landscape. Miami’s pace of life and its priorities were so different from ours,” she recalled with a laugh. She carries herself with the grounding of someone who has lived in international cities made stronger by the kind of knowledge exchange diverse migration brings about. She’s lived, studied and traveled around the world with her work in music including “a Berlin period to finish my doctorate while immersed in that city’s incredible classical music scene.” She was also her own person. “I was often sent to [the dean of students’] office for my liberal interpretation of the school dress code,” she said, laughing. “I’d swap the preppy look for old men’s shirts my mom would use for painting, plus any black accessories to look more ‘alternative.’” They eventually agreed she would tuck in her shirt for 10 minutes during homeroom. Sierra arrived at Ransom Everglades after having studied piano from the age of five. “I grew up with classical music playing at home and in the car,” she said. “I was taken to concerts, galleries and performances. I loved being surrounded by art and artists, where musical and artistic expression were second nature. “My sister Grace (an interior designer) and I grew up in the 1970s and 80s, where we were able to explore our creativity and make our own fun,” she said. “I remember being very curious about the world around me, fascinated by Miami’s cultural mixes and clashes, and the huge contrast with our many trips to New York.” She met some of her best, lifelong friends growing up in Florida. “My best girlfriends at Ransom Everglades were April La Russe ’87 (Dr. La Russe’s daughter) and Aryn Rothfield ’87. We were the ‘three A’s’,” recalled Sierra. “Tragically, we lost Aryn to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma a few years after graduation. But April happened to settle here in London to begin her career in finance. We remain good friends and still remember dear Aryn and our good times back in Miami.” She also met the late RE college counselor James (Jim) Hatch. “I told him I wanted to go to New York or Boston for college, but Mr. Hatch somehow knew immediately that Oberlin would be the perfect place for me,” she said. “My reply was, ‘Ohio!? Why would I want to live in Ohio?’ He implored me to give it a chance and apply.” Miami and New York City have contrasting natural worlds, but they’re still big coastal cities. Sierra was a big city kid. But through the Oberlin brochure she learned about its well-regarded conservatory of music combined with liberal arts. “It had endless opportunities for an artsy kid like me. I had offers from NYU and Boston College, too, but Oberlin was clearly the right place with music subsumed in every aspect of campus life. I loved the history of the place, that it was the first college to admit women and African-American students, and was a stop on the Underground Railroad. “Initially, I thought I’d be a history major with a minor in piano but I ended up doing a double degree instead – a BA in East Asian Studies and a BMus in Electronic Music. Talk about wanting to make life difficult, it was a bit much when I found myself taking advanced music theory at the same time as second-year Chinese,” Sierra said. “But it was also a chance to start composing using all kinds of technology.” Her first compositions were written for tape, synthesizers and, eventually, the acoustic instruments and ensembles that helped to launch her career. The Midwest isn’t often thought of as a launchpad to the world, but while at Oberlin, she met Michael Daugherty, then the youngest composer teaching there. She asked how she could transfer from electronic music to composition. He told her to attend the Aspen Music Festival as a composer. When she returned with a clutch of new scores, he then encouraged her to apply to Yale. “I was very impressed by her bold musical and intellectual ideas,” Daugherty said. At Yale, she studied under Martin Bresnick and Jacob Druckman (a student of Aaron Copland), cementing her lineage among American contemporary music composers. “The Arlene I taught was animated by a fierce desire to create her own art and her own world of creative achievement,” Bresnick recalled. While at Yale, she obtained a scholarship to the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France, where she was taught by Betsy Jolas, a venerable figure in French and American contemporary music. Jolas showed by example that a woman working in the male-dominated field of classical music composition could succeed. Now 100 years old, Jolas says that she evoked her own career “to guide hers through this day and age after judging her interesting music and advising her here and there.” “I was very impressed by her bold musical and intellectual ideas ... That desire to learn and drive I encountered when I met Arlene nearly 40 years ago is still alive and kicking today.” – Michael Daugherty, composer
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