Sonja has been making music as long as she was old enough to speak, making up songs in the car and devouring her parents' record collection. Her mother recognized her aptitude and enrolled the "backseat radio" in piano lessons at the age of 7. After 12 years of piano lessons, four years of vocal training, and a B.A. in music composition, Sonja learned the business of being a professional musician while working as the Director of Education at the Harrisburg Symphony and performing as a vocalist with the Susquehanna Chorale. While in Harrisburg, she also co-founded the dance-pop band "Smoke the Groove," credited with helping to jump-start the Harrisburg indie arts scene.

Sonja's appetite for music is as vast as her range of influences -- concert music like Beethoven, Krenek, Weill and Rachmaninoff, choral music & oratorio, reggae, trip-hop, indie hip-hop, opera, musical theatre, post-rock, experimental & noise, jazz, blues, world music and good ol' piano rock all have a place in her lexicon. Sonja has also incorporated her love for analog synths and circuit-bending in projects for Moviate (film screenings, art festivals and more) with the Mystery Frogmen's Orkestra (also based in Harrisburg). For Moviate's screening of Nosferatu, the group created and performed an original soundtrack as strange and creepy as the movie itself. She continues to seek out off-kilter keyboard instruments to add to her collection, and counts a recent trip to Rochester to play a fully-functioning mellotron among her geeky highlights.

In May of 2008, Sonja decided to strike out on her own and moved to Philadelphia to find work as a musician. Philadelphia blues & reggae guitarist Marc Lomax gave Sonja her first performance opportunity as a backing vocalist & keyboardist for his original band. Soon after performing at an open mic, singer-songwriter Ryan Tennis invited her to play a solo set at Buckets in East Falls, and from then on Sonja became a regular member of his band. Sonja continues to sing backup vox for Ryan and other Philly singer-songwriters, and regularly performs her own brand of piano-based classipop for folks around the city.

Concert music still has a special place in Sonja's heart, and to satisfy that itch she studies the craft of classical composition and sings with the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia, a 140-member chorus dedicated to the performance of new music. She also performs for weddings, funerals and church services both as a pianist and mezzo-soprano.

In the midst of performing and writing new music, Sonja discovered a passion for teaching, and today has a private studio of nearly 35 piano and voice students. Under her tutelage, students from ages 3 to 50 may learn classical and pop piano technique, music theory, and the Smolover Method of Vocal Behavior Training. She has also taught for the National Guitar Workshop, the Downingtown School of Rock, the Music Workshop, and the Napoli School of Music and Dance.