Sarah St. Albin
Sarah St. Albin is a singer, pianist, and songwriter based in Seattle, WA. At the piano, her ballads are reminiscent of the emotional and compositional complexity of Tori Amos and the intimate warmth of singer-songwriters like Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez. Her first commercial release, Small Voice, has been described as blending "upbeat and sentimental pop" with "something dark-and-synthy." Think Fiona Apple meets Sara Bareilles, but Tori won't let go. Almost all of St. Albin's work builds from the piano.
Sarah’s musical career began in childhood, while she was growing up on a farm to the northwest of Spokane, WA. She started by belting out Celine Dion songs to her chickens and singing along to Sarah McLachlan CDs while home alone. She wasn’t permitted to study music in early childhood, but her mother provided her with voice, piano, and guitar lessons starting at age fourteen. She began writing songs at age fifteen. Her first piano ballad was inspired by a local teenager who died tragically on a family vacation in Zimbabwe. Almost all of St. Albin’s early music focuses on painful relationships and loss.
Sarah’s recording career began in her guitar teacher’s tiny studio in the mountains west of Spokane, WA, when she was sixteen. She completed two 3-track demos before graduating high school in 2005, and performed on Hollywood Boulevard during the Musician’s Institute’s first ever House Band Weekend in 2004. She released occasional singles during her undergraduate years at the University of Idaho (Moscow, ID), the University of Montana (Missoula, MT), and the University of Washington (Seattle, WA) – including self-produced “In the Garden” (2009) and “The Harvest of Moss” (2010). She began working on Small Voice with producer Robert Cheek (Band of Horses, Deftones, Tera Melos) in fall 2016, during her final year as a graduate student in English Literature at the University of Washington. Sarah’s study of Victorian literature, as well as her brief stint in the world of academia, offered valuable insight into the dilemma of speaking out while being actively silenced—a key theme in Small Voice.
Since releasing Small Voice (2017) on her label, Desibelle Entertainment, Sarah has been preparing for her first tour - beginning with a string of Pacific Northwest benefit concerts. Her next single, "Impossible," will be out this summer!
Soloist
Piano, Pop