Steamboat Springs, CO - Sarah Jarosz is committing to a new sound on her latest album, “Polaroid Lovers,” which dropped in January. If you listened to her first six albums, you would have heard mostly acoustic-backed songs; but in this, her seventh studio album, she’s exploring the full band sound.

“I feel like I’ve always been exploratory,” she says. “Particularly when it comes to drums and electric guitar tones and sounds, I think I’ve dabbled in that in the past, but this time I’m fully committing to it.”

Growing up in Wimberley, a small town outside of Austin, TX, Sarah was exposed to music – particularly folk and bluegrass – from a young age. “Music has always been there for me in my life,” she says. She started writing her own songs as a teenager and signed her first record deal at 16. Her debut studio album “Song Up In Her Head” was released in 2009 and her career took off.

Ten Grammy nominations – and four wins – later, Sarah introduces her new vibe with “Polaroid Lovers” and is currently on a months-long tour to promote it. Joining her on tour? Her octave mandolin. “That’s been another cool thing over the course of my career – fully committing to that instrument as the one for me,” she says.

Sarah will perform at Strings on Sunday, Feb. 18 and she’s excited to be back in Colorado. “Colorado has been very important for me from the very beginning,” she says. “The first music camp that I went to outside of Texas was RockyGrass in Lyons. Those festivals kind of changed my life and really made me feel like this is what I want to do. It always feels very special to go back and play there because it really is a bit of a musical home for me.”

For tickets, visit www.stringsmusicfestival.com.