KURATED NO. 245
VANCOUVER FOLK MUSIC FESTIVAL 48
Featured Act
• Jane Siberry’s Art and Soul
Season One: The Hard Knots is her new album
being released one song at a time since October
CONTENTS
- PLAYLIST some essential Jane Siberry songs on Spotify
- FESTIVAL 48 43-song artist line-up sampler curated by Artistic Director Fiona Black
- VIDEO: ONE SONG Calling All Angels – Jane Siberry and k.d. lang
- ON INSTAGRAM
- SIBERRY’S WEBSITE
- VANCOUVER FOLK MUSIC FESTIVAL – see below
An always independent and inventive artist, Jane Siberry did a small tour to select BC and stateside venues late last year playing to enthusiastic audiences.
JANE SIBERRY’s ART AND SOUL
“Her recordings can comfort, inspire and nourish, but they are also very different creations from what she brings to the stage.”
Jane Siberry’s music bears the indelible stamp of a rare artist keenly attuned to her internal musical muse. Her beautifully crafted compositions – intricate and assured, delightfully passionate and forthright – have found mainstream success over her 45-year career. But Siberry also challenges herself and listeners in shaping ethereal, soul-searching works charged with meaning.
As an independent artist she formed her own record label Sheeba in 1996 to assert control of her work. Ten years later she changed her name to Issa and got rid of most of her worldly possessions.
“I felt the need to make some strong changes in my life,” she told Windy City Magazine. “It seemed important to change my name, so I did. I changed it to a name that I thought was simple, an empty cup.” She decided to give up her belongings because they made her feel “heavy.” In 2009 she returned to being Jane Siberry: “I feel richer from having been Issa for three years.”
Over the years Siberry has collaborated with top artists including k.d. lang, Peter Gabriel, Joe Jackson, Patty Larkin, Brian Eno, Holly Cole, Mary Margaret O’Hara, and Vancouver-based Rebecca Jenkins who will be performing with her at the Vancouver festival.
She’s made 19 albums including two seasonal sets. Her latest recording is the first in nine years. Season One: The Hard Knots has been released one song at a time since October. A month-long November/December tour of Canada and the US heard her perform old and new material.
Stops along the way included Toronto’s Hugh’s Room, Vancouver’s Rickshaw and St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Victoria. This year she has scheduled July performances at the Mariposa and Vancouver Folk Music Festivals.
Siberry’s appearance at Vancouver’s festival this summer is her first since 2006. Then artistic director Dugg Simpson praised her work: “No two concerts by Jane are ever the same. Her recordings can comfort, inspire and nourish from day to day, but they are also very different creations from what she brings to the stage.
“She is remarkably, sometimes disconcertingly, in the present. Her ability to divine a mood, a moment, and the energies we create together, always enhances my awareness of it too, and is a gentle reminder to try and be that way more often.”
For those of us who followed Siberry during her prolific recording years, seeing and hearing her perform old and new work will be an exciting treat. For new listeners we promise the same.
10 May 2025
