Meet the Team

Augustana Arts has a small but mighty administrative team. Our programs are additionally supported by incredible musicians and music educators that bring our work out into the community.

  • Sara Mansch-Hare has spent nearly her entire life as a musician and longer than the past decade as an arts administrator. She is passionate about envisioning a new future for the orchestra and the performing arts. Her nearly decade-long work leading innovative and immersive performances for Denver’s youth guided her desire to create programs that break down barriers, challenge convention, and create welcoming spaces for audiences from diverse backgrounds. She believes the arts, and the orchestra, should be a place for all and works to create space for musicians and audience members from all backgrounds and performance styles in her work.


    Sara holds an undergraduate degree in Oboe Performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music. After finishing her degree, she came to the harrowing conclusion that, despite decades of study, she no longer wanted to pursue a career as a performing musician. She went on to receive a master’s degree from the University of Denver in Arts and Culture with a concentration in Arts Management and Program Development and has been helping to connect audiences with transformative arts experiences ever since.

  • Josh Decker is a classically trained trumpet player from Columbus, OH. Josh studied music education at Ohio Wesleyan University, where he studied trumpet with Dr. Larry Griffin. Decker also holds a master’s degree in trumpet performance from Carnegie Mellon University, and a performance certificate from the University of Denver.

    in the summer of 2023, Josh successfully won the second trumpet audition of Stratus Chamber Orchestra, Augustana Arts’ orchestra in residency. Josh has had the pleasure of playing as guest principal trumpet with the Denver Philharmonic, Chamber Orchestra of the Springs, Arapahoe Philharmonic and can be seen performing with other Denver musical institutions such as the Denver Brass and the Denver Municipal Band. Josh is the co-founder of Mountain State Brass Quintet, a Denver-based collective of musicians that perform wedding ceremonies and other events in the Denver community. Prior to moving to Denver, Josh played second trumpet with the Newark-Granville Symphony Orchestra of Ohio, a relationship that spanned more than a decade.

    In 2013, Josh made a solo appearance playing the National Anthem at the NCAA Track and Field Finals.

    As an educator, Josh has taught hundreds of student musicians the trumpet. In 2021, Josh taught the trumpet studio at his undergraduate alma mater, Ohio Wesleyan. Many of Josh’s students have played in central Ohio’s illustrious youth ensemble programs and have gone on to studying at the university level. Josh is currently a brass instrument instructor at Parlando School of Musical Arts in Boulder, CO. He is fortunate to work with students from very diverse backgrounds in the Denver Public Schools, Jefferson County Schools, and Boulder Valley School Districts.

    Josh’s latest musical pursuits have been heavily composition focused. In December of 2022, The world famous Denver Brass played his newly composed work, “Holiday Fanfare and Song.” Subsequently, the group played his composition again in December of 2023, and in that same weekend, the spectacular Colorado Symphony Brass played the piece on their Holiday Brass concert series. Most recently, Josh has written a composition for middle school band entitled “Groove Factory.” The world premier was in April of 2024 and was performed by the Boulder Country Day MS Band.

    The arts, particularly music, is incredibly important to Josh. He is constantly striving to tear down barriers to access for students in the Denver community and is excited for his work with Augustana Arts.