Lilac Embers – EPK

BIO #2

Sharlene Wallace lives in a normal Toronto house bursting with an abnormal number of harps. From that tightly strung fortress of song she launches campaigns across Canada, the US, Italy and France with music that listeners describe as Celtic, Classical, South American or contemporary, but it’s really all just Shar. She placed first in international lever harp competitions in the USA and Brittany (you should have seen the victory parades – so many harps!) and students and music lovers all over Canada have cherished her performances since the time when the CD was new. She’s played lever and pedal harp with orchestras and festivals everywhere, toured with Ron Korb (flutes), George Koller (bass), Joe Macerollo (accordion) and Susan Piltch (flute, piano). Lately she has been making music with pianist Eric Robertson and fiddle player Anne Lindsay in a trio called Iona Passage. For the record, though, she doesn’t own a passage, just a lot of harps. 

Somehow, between all of that travelling and playing Sharlene found time to create nine recordings of her own music and arrangements. Trees.Listen, with co-composer Frank Horvat, was released in October 2024. It’s a nine-piece suite for Celtic lever harp and electronics inspired by the ancient Celtic Ogham script and the book To Speak for the Trees by botanist, biochemist, biologist Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger. This project includes an album, sound installations, and a performance that premiered at the University of Guelph Arboretum in September 2024. One month later, she released Lilac Embers, an album of all Shar-music written for Celtic harp with electronics by Jean Martin.

Sharlene has taught lever and pedal harp privately, in four universities and in workshops across North America, including over three decades for Island Mountain Arts in Wells, BC. She herself has a performance degree from the University of Toronto where she studied with harp oracle Judy Loman, who is 47 feet tall and 172 years old.

Sharlene also is a graphic designer, photographer, part-time pollster and will defend accordion music to the very end.

ABOUT Lilac Embers – a NEW Shar-album

Lilac Embers is a deep sonic journey of spaciousness, rhythm, emotion, movement… a place to escape to … to feel … to rest … and dance to.

These compositions were written since 2016. A few, Stillness, Waiting, Foothills Fancy, Soul of the Forest, and Sea Change were composed during The Pandemic. Jean Martin and myself wanted to explore-experiment together with my music. In 2022, we began with Stillness, innocently as an experiential experiment. We continued. Never with intent. Only instinct and openness. Never with anything but an openness to create and explore… based on a chosen Shar-composition. And… suddenly we had eleven recorded Shar-composition experiences and one free-improvisation, Deeper Than the Quartz. We often veered off my written compositions. Often. Delving into intuitive improvisation. Layering sometimes more than twenty harp parts, we played from the instigation of my compositions and in-the-moment exploration beyond “the page” with Jean steering the acoustic harp and electric harp sounds through his electronics with instinct. Two years through the tail end of Covid we recorded the album. Coincidently, this recording coincided with Frank Horvat and I composing and recording our project, Trees.Listen, with Jean engineering that as well. Both albums are Celtic harp with electronics, but created in very different manners. These albums are both deeply and creatively personal and explorative. I am grateful for the freedom and spacious playing conjured throughout the recording process.

– Sharlene Wallace

Listen on your favourite streaming platforms, buy or download: sharlenewallace.hearnow.com

All music composed by Sharlene Wallace (SOCAN) for acoustic & electric Celtic/lever harps with electronics by Jean Martin and reimagined through improvisation. 

Sharlene Wallace – acoustic & electric lever harps
Jean Martin – electronics, engineer (THE FARM, Toronto, Canada)

Produced by Jean Martin & Sharlene Wallace
Engineered, Mixed, Mastered at THE FARM by Jean Martin

Photography Art by Sharlene Wallace
Packaging by Paul Hodgson and Jeannette Hanna

Sharlene recorded Lilac Embers on her 40 string Kortier acoustic harp and Lyon & Healy Silhouette electric harp.

Total CD time 56 minutes
Release Date November 2024
Catalogue SWCD007
UPC 061297965694

sound woven layers
upon layers of harp waves
spun in spiral sound.

– Sharlene Wallace

Lilac Embers COVER & PACKAGING

Poster – Liner Notes

Included in the CD packaging is a signed poster with “liner notes” for each track. Each track title is included in a thought, haiku, or play on words that is descriptive of the composition.

the stars are winking at me, glowing with unknown mysteries of life, the universe and beyond. they sparkle and wink wink back at me reassuringly. the grand expansiveness – questions glimmer endless thoughts – your starry gaze winks. ❦ after the rain. from under the fern. beneath the moss. deeper than the quartz upon which it clings. I listen ❦ the Cariboo foothills fancy nudging the Rockies with their fanciful whisperings of grandeur. ❦ a rose arose from a rose, layers and depths of memories that come and go and twist like a breeze- through the rosarium. inhale. exhale. hold on to this moment. a rose from a rose. swimmingly pink and laughing. a lily of grace ❦ musing. amusing. the minstrel played the Perth Manor Muse while the guests dined in the manner of a manor. it was my muse. and I certainly was, amused! ❦ once upon a time, I lived in a forest of birch and hemlock, aspen, oak and pine. these canopies my ancestors walked beneath. rising towards the constancy of the endless night. ninety sun spirals. shine with gratitude in the soul of the forest. ❦ three score say no more. one step in front of the next. time to feel sublime. ❦ the sea change transforms, washes anew what was to what will be. the wave and current of time beautifully. ❦ wait. breathe. does waiting wait? or is it simply me. is waiting so impatient. while patience waits so gently. breathe. wait. ❦ along the way the trees blur past me. !elds roll gently. and the mountains stand strong. ❦ with love in your heart. all. everything. love. ❦ quiet my soul in the stillness of now.

– ©2024 Sharlene Wallace