SARAH PAGÉ
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To encapsulate the career of Montreal-based experimental harpist Sarah Pagé, one would have to draw long, constellation-like shapes across genres, borders and histories. While perhaps best known as a founding and longtime member of roots rockers The Barr Brothers, a brief consideration of her resume reveals the fact that she's equally at home within traditions as without them, having recorded with acclaimed artists such as Amon Tobin, Leif Vollebekk, Patrick Watson, Esmerine, Lhasa deSela, Nadah El Shazly, Land of Kush and Bùmarang.
Classically trained, she has been pushing the traditional boundaries of her instrument for over a decade. In that time she has garnered an international reputation as a highly versatile and
creative collaborator and has appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman twice and has shared the stage with Bassekou Kouyate, Tinariwen, Barry Manilow, George Benson, Calexico, Fred Frith, and Thurston Moore among others. An active member of her community, she is regularly involved in producing and organizing benefit concerts and charity initiatives. She has organized two benefits for Justice for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and in 2015 produced an album for Project PAL, a mental illness community outreach program. Her performances can frequently be heard on the CBC, Radio Canada, BBC, NPR and France Inter. Her work with The Barr Brothers on the critically acclaimed 2014 album Sleeping Operator earned her several JUNO and ADISQ nominations and a spot on the 2015 Polaris Prize short list.
Pagé’s first solo LP, Dose Curves (2019) affirms this versatility and reveals Pagé as one of Canada's most accomplished experimentalists. Across the album's five tracks, Pagé unfurls untold possibilities from within the 5000-year-old instrument: moving through free-form tonal caverns, catching gently-bent melodic breezes and expanding out to the ambient aethers. Dose Curves is a world in a spin of its own, intricately detailed and paced serenely.
Her most recent album Voda (2023) refreshes her sonic exploration of water almost ten years after the original production, a collaborative work with Russian choreographer Nika Stein in 2014. Offering a rich, expansive sound universe, where the sparseness of the notes and their panning in stereophonic space create an atmosphere both mysterious and soothing.
Pagé is half of collaborative project Page Vide with Joni Void. A meeting of Pagé’s versatile Harp practice and explorative techniques with the cinematic production, sound-editing approach and sample based narratives of Void; Page Vide is the result of a longstanding live symbiosis between both artists. She is also part of the trio MATIVETSKY AMIRI & PAGÉ, with Amir Amiri on santur, Sarah Pagé on harp, and Shawn Mativetsky on tabla. The group presents a new form of chamber music that is reflective of today's global society, uniting a myriad of traditions and practices with expressive emotion and spontaneity. -
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