Sarah Slean: Musical Adventurer
Sarah Slean believes in taking risks. “I just love that,” her light voice ringing across the line, “I love when art is exciting and risk is involved. When people do what is expected, nothing grows.”
The blue-eyed Canadian singer-songwriter is making a name for herself in doing the utterly unexpected. She is on the bill with Toronto’s Art of Time Ensemble, touring through Canada in support of their collaborative album, Black Flowers. Slean and the Ensemble will be making a stop at the Royal Conservatory of Music’s new Koerner Hall October 22nd.
Slean is perhaps best-known to Canadian music fans as being the woman behind a slew of recordings over the last decade, including Night Bugs, Day One, and most recently, The Baroness, released last year, and The Baroness Redecorates, an album of B-sides, released in December. When asked about why she chose to stray from her pop/ballad roots, she makes it clear that while she loves her chosen field, exposing herself to a broad range of sounds makes her a better artist.
“I need stimulation,” she admits, “I need to be challenged. I’m interested in music and so in awe of it. … I so admire risk-taking. There’s that sense with the Art of Time, every concert, before the show, if I’m in it or not, I get this feeling: “What is this going to be? Is this going to fly?” There’s a real danger that’s exciting, and I love that.”
The Art of Time Ensemble is known for pushing the boundaries between different genres of music,
and indeed, art forms. Since their formation in 1998, they have re-arranged and reinterpreted works from the worlds of rock, pop, opera, and cabaret, merging them with artists from rock, pop, dance, film, literature, theatre, and the avant-garde and circus worlds. Their most recent concert was a celebration of The Beatles’ Abbey Road and featured a diverse line-up of performers (including former Barenaked Ladies’ member Steven Page) performer unique, sometimes offbeat arrangements of tunes by the Fab Four.
Slean first worked with the avant-garde classical ensemble in 2007 when she was approached by Artistic Director Andrew Burashko to contribute to Schubert: Source and Inspiration, and later, the Toronto Songbook, which featured works that would later become part of Black Flowers. Original works by Leonard Cohen, Sarah Harmer, Mary Margaret O'Hara, John Southworth, Hawskley Workman, Feist, and Ron Sexsmith have all been re-arranged and re-interpreted through the Ensemble’s unique vision that pushes the boundaries of musicality and creative sonic expression.
Bridging the gap between classical sounds and contemporary ones has always proven something of a challenge to pop artists, and yet Slean sees no divide –only another form of inspiration for her ever-growing catalogue of sounds and musical ideas. “I always remind myself that Beethoven and I have the same raw material available to us,” she says with a self-conscious giggle, adding, “it’s kind of crippling to think of that, like, ‘Oh my God, he’s such a genius…’ But it’s also so inspiring and empowering to think this music stuff is available to us all.”
The inspiration comes, says Slean, when she brings her full awareness to new creative experiences. “The deeper I get into it, the more excited I am by new tools in the toolbox, so to speak. And working with people in the classical and jazz disciplines, I can step out of my own pop habits, like the way I play and sing. There is an awareness of other musicians within the ensemble to make something come to life, new skills and new dimensions for me –and I love it.”
These new dimensions include her working with new people, including those she wouldn’t otherwise encounter in the world of Canadian and international pop. “We both have a very big passion for music,” he says of her connection with Artistic Director Andrew Burashko. “He is amazing in that he likes so many things, and he sees the bridge between things and he’s unafraid to take risks, and try to make bridges between things that people don’t see.”
That doesn’t mean the two artists haven’t had their share of disagreements; with two passionate artists, it’s almost inevitable there would be arguments, and Slean admits that such tiffs work, in the end, at making the output better. “We do have a sort of volatile relationship,” she says with a nervous laugh. “Sometimes we drive each other crazy. And we have gotten into total scraps before, but the fondness never goes away, because we both know we’re subordinate to the mandate at hand, the one we love dearly, which is exploring music and playing it, and being deep within it.”
While Black Flowers contains the music of what Slean calls “all of those writers I grew up with when I started playing shows,” people she points to as being “a really heavy influence” on her, working with the Art of Time Ensemble has also proven to be a boon for her songwriting output. “Absolutely,” she quickly answers, when asked if working with classical musicians has changed the nature of her own work. But she sees it as a continuum of her journey as an artist. Slean recently finished attending the University of Toronto, where she studied philosophy and music; in addition she paints and has published volumes of poetry. All of it, she says, informs her songwriting.
However, fans may not hear too much of Slean’s original work at Koerner Hall, or any of the other concerts she’s giving with the Art of Time Ensemble. The concert will mainly be focused on material from Black Flowers, although Slean notes the show may feature at least one of her own songs, though she isn’t keen on the focus straying away from the collective nature of the Ensemble’ work.
“I was going to keep it spare,” she says, “because I wanted spotlight to be on them, as an ensemble. That’s what it is. These hours of accumulated practice and study are ridiculous, so it’s about all of us, as a whole, and it’s about the music. It’s not about me.”
That isn’t to imply fans aren’t welcome, however. “I think they know if they want to come to a concert, they know what I do.” But she acknowledges the Ensemble tour is a bit different. Then again, being different is, in Slean’s world, plus normale. “I never follow the same path,” she offers, “I want every (album) to be a departure. I won’t make a record unless I have something new to say, and I will always do that. Joni Mitchell didn’t make the same record over and over… that’s the kind of artist I want to be.”
The Black Flowers Tour with the Art of Time Ensemble featuring Sarah Slean are touring nationally. For dates and times, check here.
