After an absence of several years, local musician Sarah Melody will return to the stage to perform at the Songwriter Series.
“I feel it’s time,” said Melody. “A lot of people like to pigeon hole and put you in a box but you never retire (because) it’s your passion. It’s something I do personally. I love the Songwriter Series because it’s about the song and the talent.”
She expects to feature a couple of tunes from her last EP Simple Things. It was the record she feels most connected to as a songwriter.
Melody, her real middle name, saw success with music earlier in her life. She has been singing since she was a young child and her first commercial success was with the release of Easy Come, Easy Go to radio in 2004 when she was 14 years old.
She took the advice of some producers she worked with on her debut album, Side Two, released in 2007, to learn the business side of the music industry, at the Harris Institute of the Arts in Toronto, an internship at Sony Music and a BA in commercial music at the University of the West of Scotland.
In total, she released two EPs, one full length album, and four singles. Her most recent was an EP called Simple Things, a co-write with Brian Allen, in 2013. Two of her songs, Love Is, and Real Love, were featured in episodes of Global TV’s sitcom Da Kink in My Hair while another, called Stand Back, was included in a Toronto District School Board teen documentary, and Hooked was placed on EMPlayers in Le Chateau stores across Canada.
Among her many music accomplishments and activities, she was nominated in the Best Urban category at Ontario Independent Music Awards (Nov 2007). In 2011, she won the Barrie Arts Award for Emerging Artist but wasn’t able to attend because she was touring in Europe. One of her performance highlights was opening for her favourite band, the Arkells, at Barrie’s Downtown Countdown NYE celebration.
After Simple Things, she started writing for her own pleasure and focused on mentoring others. She started the Barrie Regional Writers Group (BRWG), a chapter of the Songwriters Association of Canada, in 2015 and she currently serves on the board of directors for Ontario Musicians Co-operative Inc.
In between, there were some life and music events that led to anxiety and depression. Yoga helped her through it and she took the yoga teacher training to learn how to manage her own stress and anxiety. While she never intended to teach it, earlier this year, she opened her own studio, Anahata Yoga, Barrie’s south end. Now, she combines her love of music and yoga together.
For more information on the BRWG click here
The Songwriter Series unfolds on Tuesday, June 11 at Donaleigh's Irish Public House, 28 Dunlop St. E., downtown Barrie. For tickets, see www.eventbrite.ca
