Origin Story

Sarah Segal-Lazar has been making music since before she could talk. Folks say she took her first steps in 3/4 time. By the time she was nine, she was sending songs into the local radio station.

At nineteen, she moved to the City That Never Sleeps, that Concrete Jungle we call Gotham, to study the art of acting. But she couldn’t leave the music behind. She started playing in dive bars in the Lower East Side and jazz bars in Greenwich Village. She would have stayed forever if Uncle Sam hadn’t come knocking when her visa expired. Not wanting to be an actual outlaw, she packed her bags and headed north.

Upon crossing back over the 49th parallel, Sarah took her love of music and her love of theatre, hitched them together, and created her award-winning company, Sermo Scomber. She’s gone on to release her own music, as well as compose for others. Her songs have even been featured on CBC’s As It Happens multiple times—one of Sarah’s proudest moments. Dancing at the crossroads where folk and country meet, reviewers have called her music “simply mesmerizing” and “so gorgeous, they made the air go still.“

These days, the Femme Fatale of Folk splits her time between the busy streets of Montreal and the red shores of PEI—and sharing her tunes wherever the wind may take her. Her latest album VALLEYS, produced by Canadian folk luminary Matthew Barber, is out now.

Sarah was just nominated for Folk Music Ontario’s 2024 Recording Artist of the Year, with the winners to be announced in October.