Sarah Slean

Sarah Hope Slean (born June 21, 1977) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, composer and musician. She has released eleven albums to date (including EPs and live albums). She is also a poet, visual artist, and occasional actress.

Career Major recordings Slean recorded her first EP Universe (1997) at the age of nineteen. It was followed by Blue Parade in 1998. Night Bugs was her first major label album, co-produced by Slean and Hawksley Workman, and released by WEA in Canada and Atlantic Records in the United States. It was heavily inspired by cabaret music. Slean composed all the string and horn arrangements for these albums - by hand in traditional notation.

On 28 September 2004, Slean released her fourth album, Day One. Here Slean's piano takes a less important spot for the first time in her career. The focus is more on beats, rhythms and guitar, which is evident in the album's first single, "Lucky Me". The up-tempo title track "Day One", and "Mary", a song about Slean's grandmother, were released as the second and third singles. Slean was first introduced to VS orchestral libraries and MIDI sequencing on this album, and composed all the orchestral accompaniments.

In October 2006, Slean released a mostly-live album, Orphan Music, which consists of songs recorded live at Toronto's Harbourfront Theatre and the Vancouver East Cultural Centre. Other new tracks featuring Slean and the piano were recorded at DNA Recording Facility in Toronto and Kensaltown Studios in the UK.

On 13 December 2007, Slean's website underwent a massive overhaul in preparation for her newest studio album, entitled The Baroness. Visitors to the new site were invited to sign up for Slean's new mailing list, and in doing so would be able to download a demo version of her newest single, "Get Home". People who pre-ordered the new album from the new website's store also received a download to the non-album track "Parasol". The Baroness was released on 11 March 2008. The iTunes version of the album included two additional non-album tracks, "The Rose" and "The Lonely Side of the Moon." In September 2008, Slean announced her intention to release the non-album tracks from The Baroness as an EP. Both Parasol and Modern Man have been confirmed by Slean in Question and Answer sessions in her official website. On 13 November 2008, the official Sarahslean.com newsletter announced the title for the EP to be The Baroness Redecorates. A full track list was also provided.

Slean released her fifth studio album, a double album entitled Land & Sea, on 27 September 2011. As previously with Beauty Lives, a 100 special handcrafted editions were sold of the album. Land & Sea is also Slean's first record to be released on vinyl. Sarah composed the orchestral arrangements for three songs and her mentor Jonathan Goldsmith arranged three others .

Slean's studio album Metaphysics was released in April 2017. A pre-order campaign for the album was held on PledgeMusic.

Other music work In 2006, she contributed two covers ("Us and Them" and "Comfortably Numb") to Pink Floyd Redux, a modern 12-track tribute to Pink Floyd.

Another notable cover in Slean's repertoire is her down-tempo rendition of Our Lady Peace's guitar-driven song "Julia". Our Lady Peace has performed Slean's "piano" version of their song in their own concerts. Vocalist Raine Maida explained the origins of the piano version: "We’re gonna do a song from our first record now, that was given to us on a cassette tape, a very different version, from a girl named Sarah Slean from Toronto..."

Slean was also featured on the Fox TV network as the pianist in Sunrise, the fictional town where bodies started piling up in Murder in Small Town X, a short-lived reality TV series.

In October 2008, Slean performed at the first annual Canwest Cabaret Festival in Toronto. Slean performed sets of her own music accompanied by bassist Joe Phillips and drummer Mark Mariash, and also contributed to multi-artist "songbook" performances of the songs of Leonard Cohen and Kurt Weill.

In March 2009, Slean took part in the Juno Songwriter's Circle in Vancouver, alongside fellow songwriters Jim Cuddy, Jacob Hoggard (of Hedley), Doc Walker, Buffy Saint-Marie, Vancouver upstart Ndidi Onukwulu, and Hawksley Workman, who hosted. She played two songs from The Baroness, "Notes from the Underground" and "Looking for Someone".

In 2009 she took part in an interactive documentary series called City Sonic. The series, which featured 20 Toronto artists, had her talk about performing at the Rivoli while attending the University of Toronto.

On 18 April 2011, Slean chose a song called "New Pair of Eyes" from Land, to be included on the compilation album Songs of Love for Japan. She described the song as an "ode to the shocking wonder of existence". Songs of Love for Japan was available for only 3 days, with all proceeds going toward relief efforts in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan on 11 March 2011.

Since at least 2021, Slean has worked on writing the music for the stage musical Maudie, based on the life of Canadian artist Maud Lewis. As of August 2025, the musical was still in development.

In 2026, Slean won a DORA for “Outstanding New Opera” as part of the compositional team for Canuck Cantatas.

Personal life Slean was born in Pickering, Ontario. She attended Dunbarton High School in Pickering. After initially studying music at York University, she completed a degree in music and philosophy at the University of Toronto.

In 2008, Slean and fellow singer-songwriter Royal Wood got engaged while in Paris; the pair married in 2009, and would divorce in 2013. In January 2014, Slean said she and Wood had "parted ways as friends".

On November 7, 2020, Slean announced on her social media accounts that she was pregnant with a daughter. Slean gave birth to a baby girl named Abigail on March 11, 2021.

Discography

Studio albums Title Details Notes Blue Parade Released: 17 August 1998 Label: (None) Independent release Night Bugs Released: 19 March 2002 Label: WEA / Atlantic Records First major label release, Nominated for Best New Artist Juno Award Day One Released: 28 September 2004 Label: WEANominated for Best Adult Alternative Album Juno Award The Baroness Released: 11 March 2008 Label: WEANominated for Best Adult Alternative Album Juno Award Black Flowers Released: 1 June 2009 Label: PID Productions Collaboration with theArt of Time Ensemble Land & Sea Released: 27 September 2011 Label: Pheromone RecordingsMetaphysics Released: 7 April 2017 Sarah Slean & Symphony Nova Scotia Released: 24 January 2020 Label: Centrediscs Nominated for 2021 Juno Awards: Classical Album of the Year – Vocal or Choral Performance

EPs and live albums Title Details Notes Universe Released: 1997 (Cassette); 1998 (CD) Label: (None) Independent release Sarah Slean EP Released: 17 July 2001 Label: WEA / Atlantic Records Orphan Music Released: 31 October 2006 Label: WEA Live album with newly recorded studio versions, B-sides, and remixes The Baroness Redecorates Released: 9 December 2008 Label: WEA B-sides EP consisting of tracks cut from The Baroness Beauty Lives – The B-Sides Released: December 2010 Label: WEA Collection of newly recorded old and new tracks String Quartet No. 2 Released: March 2011 Label: The Baroness Inc. String quartet written as a commission for The Blue Ceiling Dance Company These Twowith Hawksley Workman Released: 2020

Singles Title Details Notes "Lucky Me" Released: 6 July 2004 Label: WEA "When Another Midnight" Released: 16 November 2004 Label: WEA Features hip-hop artist K-OS "Mary" Released: 9 August 2005 Label: WEA Improbable Pop Radio Mix, not the Day One version

Radio releases "Sweet Ones" (2002) "Weight" (2002) "Duncan" (2003) "Lucky Me" (2004) "Day One"(2005) "Mary" (2005) "Somebody's Arms" (2005) "Get Home" (2008) "Set It Free" (2011) "Sarah" (2017)

Music videos "Weight" (1998) "High" (2000) "Sweet Ones" (2002) "Lucky Me" (2004) "Day One"(2005) "Mary" (2005) "Get Home" (2008) "The Rose" (2010) "Set It Free" (2011) "The Devil & the Dove" (2012) "Society Song" (2012) "Sarah" (2017) "Every Rhythm Is The Beat" (2017)