Sarah Slean | |
|---|---|
_(cropped).jpg) Slean in 2018 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | Sarah Hope Slean (1977-06-21)21 June 1977 (age 48) Pickering, Ontario, Canada |
| Genres | Pop,pop rock,art rock, new classical, film scoring |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, composer, vocalist, songwriter |
| Instrument(s) | Vocals, keyboard instruments |
| Years active | 1997–present |
| Labels | WEA,Atlantic |
| Website | SarahSlean.com |
Sarah Hope Slean (born June 21, 1977) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, composer and musician. She has released eleven albums to date (including EPs and live albums). She is also a poet, visual artist, and occasional actress.
Slean recorded her first EPUniverse (1997) at the age of nineteen. It was followed byBlue Parade in 1998.[1]Night Bugs was her first major label album, co-produced by Slean andHawksley Workman, and released byWEA in Canada andAtlantic Records in the United States.[2] It was heavily inspired bycabaret music. Slean composed all the string and horn arrangements for these albums - by hand in traditional notation.
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On 28 September 2004, Slean released her fourth album,Day One. Here Slean's piano takes a less important spot for the first time in her career. The focus is more on beats, rhythms and guitar, which is evident in the album's first single, "Lucky Me".[3] The up-tempo title track "Day One", and "Mary", a song about Slean's grandmother, were released as the second and third singles. Slean was first introduced to VS orchestral libraries and MIDI sequencing on this album, and composed all the orchestral accompaniments.
In October 2006, Slean released a mostly-live album,Orphan Music, which consists of songs recorded live at Toronto's Harbourfront Theatre and the Vancouver East Cultural Centre. Other new tracks featuring Slean and the piano were recorded at DNA Recording Facility in Toronto and Kensaltown Studios in the UK.[4]
On 13 December 2007, Slean's website underwent a massive overhaul in preparation for her newest studio album, entitledThe Baroness. Visitors to the new site were invited to sign up for Slean's new mailing list, and in doing so would be able to download a demo version of her newest single, "Get Home". People who pre-ordered the new album from the new website's store also received a download to the non-album track "Parasol".The Baroness was released on 11 March 2008. TheiTunes version of the album included two additional non-album tracks, "The Rose" and "The Lonely Side of the Moon." In September 2008, Slean announced her intention to release the non-album tracks fromThe Baroness as anEP. Both Parasol and Modern Man have been confirmed by Slean in Question and Answer sessions in her official website. On 13 November 2008, the official Sarahslean.com newsletter announced the title for the EP to beThe Baroness Redecorates. A full track list was also provided.[5]
Slean released her fifth studio album, a double album entitledLand & Sea, on 27 September 2011.[6] As previously withBeauty Lives, a 100 special handcrafted editions were sold of the album.Land & Sea is also Slean's first record to be released on vinyl. Sarah composed the orchestral arrangements for three songs and her mentor Jonathan Goldsmith arranged three others .
Slean's studio albumMetaphysics was released in April 2017. A pre-order campaign for the album was held onPledgeMusic.[7]
In 2006, she contributed two covers ("Us and Them" and "Comfortably Numb") toPink Floyd Redux, a modern 12-track tribute to Pink Floyd.[8]
Another notable cover in Slean's repertoire is her down-tempo rendition ofOur Lady Peace's guitar-driven song "Julia". Our Lady Peace has performed Slean's "piano" version of their song in their own concerts. VocalistRaine Maida explained the origins of the piano version: "We’re gonna do a song from our first record now, that was given to us on a cassette tape, a very different version, from a girl named Sarah Slean from Toronto..."[9]
Slean was also featured on theFox TV network as the pianist in Sunrise, the fictional town where bodies started piling up inMurder in Small Town X, a short-lived reality TV series.[10]
In October 2008, Slean performed at the first annualCanwest Cabaret Festival in Toronto. Slean performed sets of her own music accompanied by bassistJoe Phillips and drummerMark Mariash, and also contributed to multi-artist "songbook" performances of the songs ofLeonard Cohen andKurt Weill.
In March 2009, Slean took part in theJuno Songwriter's Circle in Vancouver, alongside fellow songwritersJim Cuddy, Jacob Hoggard (ofHedley),Doc Walker,Buffy Saint-Marie, Vancouver upstartNdidi Onukwulu, andHawksley Workman, who hosted. She played two songs fromThe Baroness, "Notes from the Underground" and "Looking for Someone".
In 2009 she took part in an interactive documentary series calledCity Sonic. The series, which featured 20 Toronto artists, had her talk about performing atthe Rivoli while attending theUniversity of Toronto.
On 18 April 2011, Slean chose a song called "New Pair of Eyes" fromLand, to be included on the compilation albumSongs of Love for Japan. She described the song as an "ode to the shocking wonder of existence".Songs of Love for Japan was available for only 3 days, with all proceeds going toward relief efforts in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan on 11 March 2011.
Since at least 2021,[11] Slean has worked on writing the music for the stage musicalMaudie, based on the life of Canadian artistMaud Lewis. As of August 2025, the musical was still in development.[12]
Slean was born inPickering, Ontario. She attendedDunbarton High School in Pickering. After initially studying music atYork University, she completed a degree in music and philosophy at theUniversity of Toronto.[citation needed]
In 2008, Slean and fellow singer-songwriterRoyal Wood got engaged while in Paris;[13] the pair married in 2009,[14] and would divorce in 2013.[15] In January 2014, Slean said she and Wood had "parted ways as friends".[16]
On November 7, 2020, Slean announced on her social media accounts that she was pregnant with a daughter.[17] Slean gave birth to a baby girl named[18] Abigail on March 11, 2021.[19]
| Title | Details | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Blue Parade |
| Independent release |
| Night Bugs |
| First major label release, Nominated for Best New Artist Juno Award |
| Day One |
| Nominated for Best Adult Alternative Album Juno Award |
| The Baroness |
| Nominated for Best Adult Alternative Album Juno Award |
| Black Flowers |
| Collaboration with the Art of Time Ensemble |
| Land & Sea |
| |
| Metaphysics |
| |
| Sarah Slean & Symphony Nova Scotia |
| Nominated for 2021 Juno Awards: Classical Album of the Year – Vocal or Choral Performance |
| Title | Details | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Universe |
| Independent release |
| Sarah Slean EP |
| |
| Orphan Music |
| Live album with newly recorded studio versions, B-sides, and remixes |
| The Baroness Redecorates |
| B-sides EP consisting of tracks cut fromThe Baroness |
| Beauty Lives – The B-Sides |
| Collection of newly recorded old and new tracks |
| String Quartet No. 2 |
| String quartet written as a commission for The Blue Ceiling Dance Company |
| These Two withHawksley Workman |
|
| Title | Details | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| "Lucky Me" |
| |
| "When Another Midnight" |
| Features hip-hop artistK-OS |
| "Mary" |
| Improbable Pop Radio Mix, not theDay One version |
Slean's first collection of poetry, containing 21 poems in 69 pages, including original artwork.
A companion poetry book to the eponymous album, containing 46 pages.
In late 2004, she filmedBlack Widow with Canadian directorDavid Mortin, a film noir musical based on theEvelyn Dick murder case. It premiered in September 2005 on the film festival circuit and onCBC Television in January 2006.
In 2006, Slean teamed up once again with video director Nelson Chan ("Mary", "Day One") to create a three-part short film titledTales of the Baroness. The first segment aired on 11 May 2007 onBravo!.
In 2009, Slean was in another short film,Last Flowers (Parts1 and2 onVimeo), written and directed by CJ Wallis and produced by Elli Weisbaum.
Writing obituaries for a local newspaper to keep the wolf from the door, coupled with the complete avoidance of his own mother's death, universally rejected novelist Harvey Harris (Joseph May) is feeling more distanced than ever from the world and those who surround him. An attempt to ease his guilt leads Harvey to sneaking into the very funerals he writes about, where a chance meeting of a strong-willed woman named Mona Miller (Sarah Slean) will force Harvey to confront his greatest fears about loss and rejection and how to find a way to connect through the most severe forms of disconnection.
Slean landed the part of the Woman in French Film in Sonya Di Rienzo's short film,The Translator.[20] (Seeexcerpt onYouTube)
Tworecord engineers have been nominated in theRecording Engineer of the Year category at theJunos for their work with Slean: Peter Prilesnik in2005 forDay One, and Jeff Wolpert in2012 forLand & Sea.
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