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Sarah Albu is a soprano, experimental vocalist, composer and performance-maker. She is currently based in Tio'tia:ke - Mooniyang (Montréal). Her background in theatre and obsession with science fiction feed quirky and darkly comedic imagined worlds. She has been an invited artist at the Banff Centre for the Arts, the National Arts Centre of Canada, the Koumaria Residency in Greece, and international series and festivals across the land now known as Canada, Europe, the US and Mexico. An active soloist specializing in new/experimental music, 20th century repertoire and free improvisation, she can be heard in settings ranging from traditional Balkan village music and 15th century sacred polyphony to video game soundtracks, noise and psychedelic rock. Her first solo album was released independently in 2013, featuring 8 commissions for solo voice. She is a founding member of the experimental voice collective Phth and frequently collaborates with artists working in video, installation, contemporary dance, textiles and digital media. She has premiered many new works and contemporary opera roles in close cooperation with composers including James O'Callaghan, Gabriel Dharmoo, Gayle Young, Charles Quevillon and Tedd Robinson/ Ten Gates Dancing, Sam Shalabi, Symon Henry, and Rita Ueda, among others. Among many exciting projects upcoming in 2022 is the première of a new opera by Keiko Devaux with Musique 3 Femmes and Ensemble Paramirabo – an ensemble she has worked with often since 2011. She is the voice of all of the characters in interdisciplinary duo Chloë Lum and Yannick Desranleau's six part video installation The Garden of a Former House Turned Museum, for which she also acted, danced and consulted on the writing process. As a student in Jennifer Walshe and David Helbich's Composer-Performer course, she performed her modular participatory work FutureMoves at the Darmstadt Summer Course and Festival for New Music in Germany and subsequently toured the work in Scandinavia/the Nordic countries. She holds consecutive BFAs in Theatre and Music Performance from Concordia University and an MMus from the Conservatory of the Hague (Netherlands). An avid knitter and folk dancer, her recent performance work explores the effects of rapidly developing technology on our bodies and lives through a mix of curiosity and nostalgia.
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