Biographie

Sarah Albu is a singer, composer and performance-maker based in Tio'tia:ke (Montréal, Canada).

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, the Summertónar Festival in Tórshavn (Faroe Islands), and international series and festivals across 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 ancient sacred polyphony to film and game soundtracks, noise and psychedelic rock. 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. Her first solo album was released independently in 2013, featuring 8 commissions for solo voice. She has contributed to recordings with a wide array of artists as a guest vocalist. Upcoming in 2022 is the release of an album of Gayle Young's complete vocal works spanning from 1978-2021.

She has premiered many new works and contemporary opera roles in close cooperation with composers and new media artists including James O'Callaghan, Gabriel Dharmoo, Gayle Young, Patrick Saint-Denis, Keiko Devaux, Charles Quevillon and Tedd Robinson(10 Gates Dancing), Snežana Nešić, Sam Shalabi, Will Eizlini, Symon Henry, and Rita Ueda, among others. She performs as a soloist with ensembles such as Ensemble Paramirabo, l'Ensemble contemporain de Montréal, No Hay Banda, Architek Percussion, the Vancouver Intercultural Orchestra and collectif9.

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 workshopped and performed her modular participatory work FutureMoves at the Darmstadt Summer Course and Festival for New Music in Germany and subsequently toured the work throughout the Nordic countries.

She holds BFAs in Theatre and Music Performance from Concordia University and an MMus from the Royal 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.