Dr. Sarah John Physiotherapist

Sarah is a Performing Arts Medicine Physiotherapist and Educator, working mainly with instrumental musicians. She has extensive clinical experience in assessing & treating playing-related musculo-skeletal injuries in instrumental musicians, and she is passionate about injury prevention, and promoting musculo-skeletal well-being in musicians.

Sarah is the physiotherapist at The Purcell School for Young Musicians and well-being lead for the National Children's Orchestra of Great Britain. She is an assessing clinician and educator for the British Association of Performing Arts Medicine (www.bapam.org.uk) and works in a thriving private practice near Cambridge (www.montaguclinic.com).

Additionally, she is in high demand as a teacher and speaker, and contributes regularly to School INSET sessions for visiting instrument teachers, INSET sessions at County Music Hubs, the Royal College of Music Junior Department, the Royal Northern College of Music undergraduate and post-graduate wellbeing curriculum, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic 'Careers in the Music Industry' Study Day, BAPAM 'well-being for musicians' education sessions, Musicians Union 'well-being for musicians' activities and the Benedetti Foundation.

She has a Doctorate of Education from the University of Cambridge, and has had her research findings accepted for presentation at National, International and World Conferences (UK National Physiotherapy Conferences (2012, 2017 and 2019), International Society of Music Education World Conference (Baku, Azerbaijan, 2018), Performing Arts Medicine Association International Symposium (New Orleans, 2020).

During lockdown she has contributed to four books about musicians’ wellbeing - all currently awaiting publication.

Outside of work she is an enthusiastic amateur musician, singing in two choirs in Cambridge and playing the Double Bass (rather badly, but with deep joy) in a string chamber group.

She is the mother of two musical children and understands from a first-hand perspective, how utterly transformative and life enhancing music is for children and for their families.


She shares her home and garden with a cat who seems to not mind the singing and the double bass.