ABOUT

Media Muse | Artist Ally

Calliope  / kah-LY-oh-pee /  is a Brooklyn-based public relations agency founded in 2018 by publicist, musician, and educator Sarah Baird Knight with a mission to amplify and elevate the creative work and leadership of women and people of all colors in the performing arts.

The media landscape is in constant flux and has contracted significantly over the past two decades in the areas of print and terrestrial radio while exploding and expanding in the direction of social media, podcasts, on-demand radio, and cord-cutting cable networks. So what does it mean to relate to the public in 2018 and beyond?

Calliope allies with visionary artists, performers, conductors, directors, composers, curators, administrators, and organizations to identify collaborators and make connections in the media, to create opportunities for audience development, and to advocate for a robust culture of rich and noisy inclusivity in the arts.

The name Calliope is a double reference: both to Καλλιόπη, the chief of the nine Greek sister muses responsible for inspiring the artists of the ancient world, and to the joyful, unique, and far-reaching sound of the calliope steam organ popularized by steamboats, circuses, and carousels.

Do you have an idea? Let's have a Pimm's Cup and manage some mischief.

SARAH BAIRD KNIGHT

Founder / Chief Executive Officer

Sarah Baird Knight, Founder and CEO of Calliope PR, was most recently a partner and publicist at Dotdotdotmusic, where she managed campaigns on behalf of John Adams (Nixon in China), Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, New Amsterdam Records (yMusic, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Gregory Spears), David T. Little (JFK, Dog Days, Soldier Songs), PROTOTYPE: Opera/Theatre/NOW, Beth Morrison Projects, MATA Festival, Eighth Blackbird, So Percussion, Japan Society, Ted Hearne, Kevin Newbury, Opera Omaha, and many more. Prior to that she served as Director, Media & Public Relations at Boosey & Hawkes, where she represented the full roster of composers, including such luminaries as Elliott Carter (100th birthday), Steve Reich, and Meredith Monk. Sarah’s calling card is innovation: in her time at B&H, she rang in the 21st century with fresh new practices for e-marketing, contests, social media, content production, and event production at Sundance and SxSW.

A music educator by training, Sarah has presented talks on best PR and social media practices for the Music Publishers Association, Opera America, James Madison University, and Princeton University, as well as for the podcast Composer on Fire. She graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Music (Brass Concentration) and a minor in Education from James Madison University in 2000 and taught elementary school general music (Miami-Dade County, Florida) and middle school chorus (Stafford County, Virginia) before moving to New York City in 2004 to learn the ropes of public relations at Shuman Associates.
 
A French hornist, singer, and songwriter, Sarah is an alumna of both Brooklyn Wind Symphony and Young New Yorkers Chorus as well as an active participant in the choir and musical life of Park Slope United Methodist Church. She fronts her songwriting projects under the band name The Scarlet K and can be found daily singing original transition songs and lullabies under the name Mommia for a sparky four year old. Sarah is frequently accompanied by two choodles, Mister Roo and Chou Chou.
 

PAUL GREGG

Chief Financial Officer

Paul Gregg is a working actor in New York City with an eternal love for bookkeeping and expense management. Yet to find a musical that satisfies both life callings, he is pouring his number crunching heart into Calliope PR and its fantabulous clients. Paul spent three years as Accounts Payable/Receivable & Office Manager for a fledgling concierge company and a subsequent five years in Expense Management at a multibillion dollar global financial firm, so he is well seasoned in the world of expense minutia of all kinds. 

Other career and life highlights for Paul run the gamut from regional theatre productions of Legally Blonde, Godspell, Big (the musical), and The Full Monty; TV and film work in It’s Complicated, Boardwalk Empire, and LIVE with Regis and Kelly (as the most perfectly costumed tumbling body double for Regis Philbin); innovative NYC theatre with Underlings Productions (fave show: Much Ado About Nothing) and Everyday Inferno Theatre Company (fave show: Something Wicked); performing as an acrobat & clown in Cirque de la Mer at SeaWorld, San Diego; producing and performing in a cabaret of his own design, Beyond a Toaster, without disgracing himself or family; and finally, earning his degree in Marine Biology from the University of San Diego (as one does).