Sarah LeMieux’s muse
AN ALBUM’S DARK THEMES AND ‘GENERAL SENSE OF RISING DREAD AND ANXIETY SWIRLING AROUND IN THE WORLD’ WAS PROPHETIC
As an award-winning singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Sarah LeMieux stays in sync with her musical muse. As a member and current chairwoman of the Norwalk Board of Education, she also stays in sync with things like distance learning programs, school budgets and the latest plans for what classes will look like in the fall.
LeMieux was elected to the Norwalk board in 2017. She was named temporary chair last December and still maintains the post. The mother of three is also a talented musician, bandleader and recording artist with over a half-adozen records to her credit and an original approach to her sound, which ranges from jazz, blues, and folk to electroacoustic and experimental compositions. She plays guitar, mandolin, piano, harp, and a number of percussion instruments and has appeared at the National Women in Blues Festival, New Haven’s International Festival of Arts and Ideas, and at Hartford’s Infinity Hall, and her Sarah LeMieux Quintet won “Best Jazz” honors from 2014 through 2016 at the Connecticut Music Awards.
Her latest album, “Jazz for the End of the World,” was released in March and features eight jazz standards and one original written by LeMieux, who provides smooth, velvety vocals throughout. She plays guitar on the album, backed by an acoustic trio of bass, drums and piano. The album is available on Spotify, iTunes, Amazon, YouTube and TikTok, and has been submitted to the Recording Academy for consideration as a “Best Jazz Vocal Album” nominee at the 2021 Grammy awards.
“This recording project began as a late-night conversation around a bonfire last year,” recalls LeMieux, during a recent conversation. “Aaron Wyanski, who plays piano on the record, and Ethan Foote, who plays bass, and I, all met through the masters program in music composition at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Every August, the director of the program has an enormous bonfire that is very magical and a little eerie, and we were sitting around talking about ennui and existentialism. The conversation somehow meandered to jazz, particularly Great American Songbook standards and how many of those songs have sort of a palpable sense of doom and dystopia that underpins the lyrics. On the surface, they’re very sweet and romantic, but if you do a little digging, there’s some universal longing and despair underneath. So the idea was born there.”
The album includes standards like “Willow Weep for Me” and “Born to Be Blue” and was recorded in live takes over a weekend last December at Hoboken Recorders in New Jersey. “The title came out of the themes we were exploring in the work, as well as the general sense of rising dread and anxiety swirling around in the world at the time,” she says. “Little did we know.”
“THE TITLE CAME OUT OF THE THEMES WE WERE EXPLORING IN THE WORK, AS WELL AS THE GENERAL SENSE OF RISING DREAD AND ANXIETY SWIRLING AROUND IN THE WORLD AT THE TIME. LITTLE DID WE KNOW.”
LeMieux and her bandmates on the record, including Andy Chatfield on drums, decided to release the album at the start of the COVID-19 outbreak.
“During the process of making this record together, I felt a real sense of us putting out something into the world that might resonate with others emotionally,” says LeMieux. “Releasing it at the beginning of the pandemic lockdowns felt like lighting a little candle in the dark.”
LeMieux eventually earned her Music Composition Masters, which added to her BA from New York University and a background in education that included studying in the masters program in Educational Psychology at UConn. Her decision to run for the board of education seat stemmed in large part from her higher education studies.
“I ran because I thought my background would be useful in helping to bring a more creative approach to education,” she explains. “I also wanted to put my energy toward trying to resolve systemic issues of inequity that are persistent in our schools. I’m proud that we are modeling inclusion on the board, and that we are being very deliberate and intentional about creating a real moment of self-reflection for the district, as we transition in our new superintendent, Dr. Alexandra Estrella, who joined us this month. American schools have systemic issues with race and equity, and we have them here in Norwalk, too. I’ve been genuinely inspired to see the pace of change in policy accelerate, as the movement for Black Lives Matter boosted up after the murder of George Floyd. I’m hopeful and committed that we will be able to make changes like that, too.”
LeMieux currently teaches music to six-through-12th graders at the Spire School in Stamford and gives private lessons. Other outlets for her music include a six-piece Americana band she co-founded called The Girls from Ruby Falls and a series of Sunday morning live streamed concerts she posts on her Facebook page, which have a charitable fundraising component.
“I started doing the live streams as a lifeline for myself, because I missed playing music for and with people. At this point, we’ve raised about $1500 for charities that include the ACLU, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, organizations that help refugees, single mothers and their children, and Open Doors, the shelter for people without homes in Norwalk.”
She sees her role as a music educator extremely fulfilling. “Music is a human joy,” says LeMieux, “and everyone deserves access to it.”