IN CONCERT
What: Sarah Slean
When: Today, 7:30 p.m. (doors at 7)
Where: Alix Goolden Performance Hall, 907 Pandora Ave.
Tickets: $24 ($20 for seniors and students) at ticketfly.com
Sarah Slean’s unquenchable thirst for new experiences often takes her in wild directions, resulting in an ever-expanding palette of skills. “Making something out of nothing is exciting,” Slean said. “I want to hang on to that.”
The 40-year-old musician from Toronto, who has managed her own career since 2009, has many roles: painter, actor, author, singer, songwriter and pianist. The lines separating them are often blurred, which is how Slean likes it. If she’s interested in something, she dives in, regardless of where it fits into her career.
“I don’t think I’ll ever artistically become bored,” she said with a laugh. “That’s never a danger.”
Slean’s 11-date tour of Canada starts tonight in Victoria with a performance at Alix Goolden Performance Hall. The run of dates to support her new richly textured orch-pop album, Metaphysics, is patterned after the three-year trek to promote her 2011 album Land & Sea, which saw her work with classical ensembles in each city. She’ll do something similar tonight, with help from Victoria Conservatory of Music’s senior string orchestra and Oak Bay High School’s string orchestra.
Though the idea helps her bottom line — “If I was to try and realize this record faithfully, it would be extremely expensive,” Slean said — it means a large amount of stress. Fusing string ensembles with her core band requires a quick learning curve for everyone involved, especially considering that rehearsal time is almost nil — two hours at the most, according to Slean.
Though she has the most to lose if the concert runs aground, Slean isn’t worried. “There’s always the possibility of a trainwreck in live music — that’s why it’s fun. You never know what’s going to happen. It’s an extraordinarily good challenge for working up your chops and making you better. You have to galvanize as a unit.”
Slean isn’t simply flirting with the classical world on this project. From her beginnings as a child prodigy in Pickering, Ont., to her time studying classical piano at the University of Toronto, Slean has been immersed in music through her baby grand piano. That led to several Tori Amos comparisons early in her career, although Slean, it could be argued, sounds considerably closer to Kate Bush. The comparisons began following the arrival of her debut, Universe, in 1997, but had dissipated by the time she released 2008’s The Baroness, which earned Slean her third Juno Award nomination.
She took on the task of managing her career the following year. “The business aspect had really taken over the music aspect,” Slean said of the decision.
“I’ve worked with a lot of great people in the business, and my experience with a major label was fantastic. I have no complaint with Warner [Music, her former label], but the business at large — you have to remember what it is. All of the art that I cherish, that moved me on a very deep level, was made by people who didn’t care what was happening in the industry. They were just artists.”
Slean is also part of the Slaight Family Music Lab, a nine-month program for composers and songwriters run through the Canadian Film Centre. She’s one of four music residents who are learning how to better score music for films.
Ironically, it’s a skill the two-time Gemini Award nominee already had. Slean said she simply wanted the experience of making music for film in a new environment, with people who inspire her. “I’ve learned over the years that you have to do all kinds of things, from Broadway to contemporary classical music. You’ve got to try and cover every single possible base.”
Slean will perform Twin Moon on her upcoming tour, a song she wrote when she was 18. The song’s lyrics — “What am I doing? This business of bleeding a dime for showing my heart?” — are a testament to her long-established distaste for artifice. They also hint at why she continues to look for inspiration in unusual places. “I was walking right into the lion’s den, and I knew it,” she said of her time in the mainstream spotlight. “But I went in anyway, because I had something to say.”
The mainstream music industry never held much appeal to Slean, though she participated out of necessity when she was signed to Warner Music (her contract with the label ran out in 2010). Whether she continues off the beaten path remains to be seen, but one certainty remains: Slean is not interested in what those with ulterior motives have to say about her music.
“I feel like I have always marched to the beat of my own drummer, and sometimes that intersected with what was popular at the time. I’m cool with that. I work hard and I like to make big things, and I like to make big dreams come true. But the personality aspect of the commercial side of music is really not me. At all.”
