By Quentin Yarolem
After taking her to the New England Conservatory of Music and the Grammys — twice — life has brought Sarah Jarosz to Iowa City for a stop on her most recent tour.
She will perform at the Englert Theater, 221 E. Washington St., on Thursday. Doors will open at 7 p.m., and the show will start an hour later.
Jarosz, a singer/songwriter from Texas, has released four albums through Sugar Hill Records. She signed with Sugar Hill and released her first album, Song Up In Her Head, when she was a senior in high school.
After proving that she could be a successful musician, Jarosz decided that college was still the best option for her and enrolled in the New England Conservatory of Music.
“When I finished high school, I could have gone right out on the road,” she said. “It was almost like this sense of it being like a buffer, to not have to be a ‘road dog’ at 18 and have this experience of college and living in your city and meeting new people.”
During her time in college, she released two albums, Follow Me Down and Build Me Up From Bones; the latter was nominated for two Grammys including Best Folk Album and Best American Roots Song.
Even after releasing three critically acclaimed albums and getting two Grammy nominations — enough to make most musicians fly the coop — Jarosz never thought about dropping out of school.
“I never really seriously considered it,” she said. “There were certainly some times in there when it was a lot to juggle, but I was really driven to finish. It was an important goal for me in my life, to [graduate].”
The hard work has paid off, and Jarosz graduated with honors from the New England Conservatory of Music in 2013.
Her previous albums, while still very close and connected to her, did not receive her full attention during the creative process. Now that she is no longer in school, however, she can devote a larger part of her time to her music.
“I was able give 100 percent of my attention to the writing and recording process with Undercurrent,” she said. “For the first time, I was able to really think about writing as a task that can be worked on every single day.”
Jarosz said this was opposed to having to make seperate time in her busy schedule, adding it was hard to take advantage of the moments when “inspiration hit.”
Jarosz said she thinks this can be considered her most intimate and personal work.
“I hope that people recognize the honesty and the intimacy both in the lyrics and also [in] the way that it’s recorded,” she said.
The title of the album, Undercurrent, was chosen because of the complex nature of its double meaning.
“Both the water meaning — of a current moving below surface in the opposite direction — and also [that of] an underlying feeling or influence that’s not openly expressed; both of those definitions … capture the vibe of what I’m trying to say with these songs,” Jarosz said.