Canadian harpist and composer, Sharlene Wallace, is a musician flowing between and mingling Classical, folk and contemporary genres and performing, recording and teaching on both pedal and lever (Celtic) harps. She is the winner of two international competitions, the Lyon & Healy International Pop & Jazz Lever Harp Competition (USA) and the Dinan Concours d’Improvisation de Rencontres International de Harp Celtique (Brittany). Sharlene has toured internationally and performed in festivals and concert series across North America and in Europe. She has released seven albums featuring her compositions inspired by explorations with South American, Celtic, Classical and contemporary music, rhythm, spaciousness, and the Canadian landscape.
Sharlene has composed many pieces for harp and harp ensemble as well as commissioning numerous works for harp by Canadian composers such as Evelyne Datl, Loretto Reid, William Beauvais, Kirk Elliott, Rodney Sharman, John Beckwith etc.. Sharlene’s mentor, Alfredo Rolando Ortiz, wrote Niagara Moon for her to perform at the World Harp Congress in Vancouver, BC.
Sharlene has been guest soloist on both lever and pedal harps with orchestras in Kingston, Belleville, Timmins, Sarnia/Port Huron, Stratford, Oakville, London and Guelph. These performances have included orchestrations of her compositions.
Sharlene has taught harp workshops across North America and regularly for CAMMAC in Quebec and Island Mountain Arts in Wells, BC. She teaches both lever and pedal harps at York University and Wilfred Laurier University. Her own harp performance degree is from the University of Toronto where she studied with the eminent Judy Loman.
In 2024, Sharlene will be releasing a new album of Shar-compositions for acoustic and electric lever harps with electronics by Jean Martin. She is also creating a co-composition recording-performance-environmental project, Trees.Listen, with composer Frank Horvat, also for Celtic harp and electronics.
“The recording work of Jacques Poirier is also notable here, with intimate, close-microphone techniques capturing every motion and beat of Wallace as she executes her smooth, gentle performances. Her harp is covered with a stereo perspective, astounding in headphones, that reveals gorgeous stereo panning across Wallace’s glissandos and arpeggios. Tasteful mixing leaves Wallace shining brilliant in the warm backdrop of her comrades.”
—Karl Mohr, excerpt from “the rhyme & the river” review
“No stranger to Wells, Toronto native Sharlene Wallace came many years ago as a student of the harp school. She has since gone on to become an international recording and touring musician, with a style that is all her own. Setting the scene for a night of beautiful music Sharlene’s fingers danced along the strings of her harp as she played a set of remarkable original tunes.”
~ Julie Fowler, Director, Island Mountain Arts, Wells BC