Saint
Song Review
Worship songwriters have all
experienced times of frustration with their art, and often justifiably
complain that language is incapable of expressing the deeply profound love
that is evident in worship. This shortcoming has been a blessing in
disguise, as people have been trying for thousands of years to capture our
understanding of the Lord in words and given us countless works that reflect
small [Read
the entire story...]
Brand New Sarah Hart
Release
Because of my background in
music ministry–and my love of youth ministry–I have been afforded a few
opportunities to work with some of the most talented singers, songwriters,
and artists in the Catholic music business.
Read More...
The
Votes are In
And...Sarah has won 4 Unity awards
this year. Here are the categories where Sarah took home
Unities:
-
Songwriter of the Year – Sarah Hart
-
Song of the Year – So We Will Worship (Sarah Hart/Kevin
B. Hipp)
-
Producer of the Year – Sarah Hart and Jeff Thomas (Into
These Rooms)
-
Pop/Contemporary Album of the Year – Into These Rooms
Photo right courtesy of Diann Bruno.
Sarah speaks about Halloween
Sarah Hart Featured on Lifetime Television
Music from
Into These Rooms Airs On "Strong Medicine"
Nashville, TN
–
"Brave New World," a new song by Sarah Hart—a two-time Unity Award
winner and the founding member of the group Daughters of God—was recently
featured on Lifetime Television’s hit TV show "Strong Medicine," the
longest-running original drama ever created for basic cable. The show, which
follows the lives of health care employees at a fictional women's clinic in
South Philadelphia, selected "Brave New World" for use in "Broken Hearts,"
episode 11 of season six. The track - which hails from Hart’s newly released
album Into These Rooms - was included in the program that delved into
the topics of Down Syndrome, transplant surgery and AIDS, and featured
leading actors Rick Schroder and Rosa Blasi. Future episodes of "Strong
Medicine" can be viewed Sunday nights at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT and past episodes
air weekdays at 4:00 p.m. ET/PT. Viewers are encouraged to check their local
listings for possible rebroadcasts of the "Broken Hearts" episode.
"Brave New World" is one of Sarah Hart’s personal
favorites off of the new album. It is a song inspired by her young children
and focuses on stepping out bravely in faith each day. After hearing about
the song’s inclusion on the celebrated network Hart exclaimed that "Lifetime
Television is great, and I've especially appreciated their focus on quality
entertainment for women. I'm really excited and thrilled that they were able
to use one of my songs. It's a real honor!"
On the road as a solo artist or with the group Daughters
of God, Sarah Hart continues to bring the Good News to audiences large and
small. She has performed in the intimacy of Nashville’s Bluebird Café, New
York City’s Bitter End and Fast Folk as well as in many local community
churches. She has toured with such artists as Wes King, Scott Krippayne,
Kathy Troccoli and Phillips, Craig & Dean.
Her travels have also allowed her
to sing in front of tens of thousands of teenagers at the National Catholic
Youth Conventions held in Indianapolis and St. Louis, as well as over
500,000 young adults at 2002’s World Youth Day in Toronto. She has also sung
at several Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) gatherings. Most
recently, she performed at the 24th Italian Congress for Family held in Bari,
Italy, where Pope Benedict XVI celebrated the closing Mass. Hart is
scheduled to be a featured performer during the October 2005 National
Catholic Youth Convention in Atlanta with an expected attendance of over
80,000, as well as the nationally televised Unity Awards this November.
LIFETEEN.com
Sarah Hart...
Click here for the full interview.
Joyful Spirit Amid Cloudy Skies
BY MICHAEL ROTHFELD,
Staff Writer
August 21, 2004, 9:40 PM EDT
The dark skies opened as Sarah Hart stood
at the microphone in the big tent, pelting it with a violent downpour, and
she paused from singing and telling stories about her faith to consider the
outburst from above.
Then, just as suddenly, the hundreds of
young people seated in the tent burst out in a thunderous round of applause.
That moment typified the enthusiastic
spirit Saturday at YouthFest 2004, the first such event held by the Diocese
of Rockville Centre to strengthen the bonds between young Catholics and the
church. More than 1,000 people attended, diocesan officials said, including
dozens of priests.
"You hear a lot about the church in the
paper today," said Patricia Ahl, 14, who was manning a booth with
information about her school, St. John the Baptist in West Islip. "But if
you really look at what the church teaches, it's not what's in the paper.
Stuff like this shows you what the church is about."
Bishop William Murphy strolled the grounds
of the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Lloyd Harbor, the site of
the youth day. All the diocese's priests are trained on the bucolic 200-acre
property.
Murphy said he had wanted a day for the
youth ever since members of the diocese traveled to Toronto two years ago
for World Youth Day with Pope John Paul II. Saturday's event was planned to
fall exactly one year before the next World Youth Day, scheduled for Aug.
21, 2005, in Cologne, Germany.
"The purpose is to bring young people of
faith together so they can affirm their faith in Jesus, they can share that
faith together and they can build a sense of being church on Long Island,"
Murphy said.
Murphy, who celebrated the concluding Mass
Saturday, said the event was not an effort to restore trust in the wake of
the priest abuse scandals that have shaken Catholics on Long Island and
across the country.
"I don't think the trust has been lost," he
said. "I'm constantly trying to deal with survivors. We're doing our best at
that, but that doesn't control the whole life of the church."
Chris Ervin, of St. Rosalie's Church in
Hampton Bays, said the scandals "made us stronger as a Christian community,"
as he munched on a hamburger and took shelter from the rain.
Now, "we all stick together," he said.
In tents and around the seminary building,
those who attended talked in "breakout" sessions about subjects such as
bullying, violence, respect and child labor in the Third World.
They prayed, confessed, and sang. At one
point, musicians performed Haitian and Latin rhythms together. Hart, a
songwriter and performer from Nashville, Tenn., was a keynote speaker.
"Happy, happy, joy, joy. Happy, happy, joy,
joy, joy," she sang, as Hart's audience jumped and clapped.
Nancy Cadet, 20, a member of the Haitian
Youth Ministry at St. Anne's Church in Brentwood, said she liked the chance
to see old friends from World Youth Day in Toronto and to "keep the faith."
"As young people, we have a lot of
temptations out there," she said.
Copyright (c) 2004, Newsday, Inc.
Catholic Music Network
Source:
http://www.catholicmusicnetwork.com
"Music is one
medium that consistently draws people
together. In light of that, my vision now is
to sing wherever I am given an opportunity
to share." So says Sarah Hart whose music
welcomes and delights listeners from every
age and background, by virtue of its utter
musicality and embracing lyrical vision.
As a writer,
she begins by sharing her own experiences,
expanding her life to include ours; as a
performer, she shares her love of melody,
and delivers her evocative words to us in
clear, true notes. This is music that is
simultaneously life-affirming and
thought-provoking, a rare and welcome
combination. Like the varied songwriters, poets and
writers who have influenced her--Nancy
Griffith, James Taylor, David Wilcox and
Thomas Merton, Sylvia Plath and Flannery
O'Connor--Sarah's lyrics explore what really
matters, and expose how the mundane can lead
us to the sublime, how the sublime can
transform the mundane. Instructed and
supported by her faith, awed by the natural
world, her eye, too, on the sparrow, she
sees "darkness colored by flickers of
light", acknowledging the dark and the
difficult but leading herself and her
listeners on the path into the light and the
restorative.
Sarah's
mother, a professional musician, cultivated
and encouraged her talents; at the age of
six, she began her studies of piano, organ
and flute, supplementing these with a few
guitar lessons from her mother. She
graduated from The Ohio State University
with a degree in music composition and
theory. Sarah moved to Nashville to pursue a
music career, immediately landing session
work as a demo singer and flute player and
as a backup singer for several acts, work
she continues to enjoy. Inspired by the
talent surrounding her, her own interests
were awakened; she has found a voice and
style that allow her to cover her broad
range of interests with passion and
intelligence, and her skills as a quick
study--with both ear and theory at her
command--are evident in the polish of each
tune she sings.
Although Sarah
loves the intimacy of a small audience,
she's comfortable performing anywhere; she
bounces easily on stage from piano to
guitar, chatting as she goes, whether she's
at such places as The Bluebird Cafe in
Nashville, the Bitter End in New York City,
or opening with touring acts such as Kathy
Troccoli and Wes King. Sarah was a 1997
finalist in the Sisters Folk Festival, and a
1998 finalist in the Three Rivers Folk
Festival. Sarah has written and worked with
an array of producers, performers and
writers.
"Hart Of The
Matter" - CCM - February 1998
Hart Of The Matter, CCM Magazine, February, 1998
Some, like
Southern writer William Faulkner or poet Sylvia Plath, see the
darkness of the human heart more clearly than others. But for
singer/songwriter Sarah Hart, these writers don't depress
her spirit, but inspire and uplift it.
"I read a lot of
poetry", she says. "Sylvia Plath is my all time favorite. I
think that the reason she appeals to me so much, even though
she's depressing, is she knew how to be honest-and look honestly
upon herself and her life. Life is not cotton candy...we all
have 'stuff', and because we're so distracted, a lot of people
avoid their stuff. She never did."
Coming clean,
confronting her own stuff, is a common theme in Hart's music.
Like Shawn Colvin, one of Hart's favorite songwriters, she isn't
afraid to speak openly and honestly about life.
"I think it's a
gift to be honest," she says. "I don't ever want to pretend to
be somebody I'm not; I want to be honest about who I am and what
I represent. Often times if you do a song that's honest, people
say 'I could never be that honest, but that's how I feel.' "
On her debut
album, Goodbye Jane, one of the first releases from
New-York based label Sovereignty International, Hart employs
ethereal vocals and folksy guitars to weave stories about
growing up in Ohio, moving to Nashville, and abiding in God's
love.
"I always joke,
'[My songs] are all about me. Usually my stories are just about
my life. The cool thing is that my story seems to be a lot of
other people's story, too."
Hart's talents are
the product of nature and nurture; both her parents were
professional musicians, and Sarah began music lessons - piano,
organ and flute - at an early age, going on to study music
theory at the Ohio State University.
The day after
graduation, she moved to Nashville to pursue a career in
Christian music. With no job, no money, no place to live and no
contacts, she worked towards her goal, amending her vision of
Christian music along the way.
"In the time that
I've been [in Nashville], I've changed my attitude toward
Christian music. I see it less as, Christian music has to say
'Jesus' or 'God' or has to talk about the Holy Spirit. To me,
there are Shawn Colvin songs that appeal to my spiritual nature.
I feel the same way about songwriting now. I believe that all
things good and beautiful are created by God. I can sing a song
about the dirt on a back road, and it can be beautiful, and it
can reach someone, and it can be spiritual.
"I don't want to
be put in that box of, 'She just does Christian music', because
I think that implies something, that my music is about preaching
or about only sharing the gospel. It's not. It's about life, and
it's about God in life and the day-to-day things we have to deal
with." Thus you'll find a cover of Cyndi Lauper's "Time After
Time" alongside Hart's interpretation of "Be Thou My Vision" on
Goodbye Jane. That's also why Hart sings in bars,
coffeehouses and clubs in addition to churches.
"When you say
you're in Christian music, there's a lot of stigma attached to
that. A lot of people expect you to be a minister. God has not
called me to be a minister. God hasn't called me to be a
preacher. I know that, and I can say that with my whole heart.
God has called me to be a musician.
"If, in my
songwriting, somebody's ministered to, that's great. That's a
wonderful, wonderful thing. But I will never tell you that I'm a
preacher. It's my hope that what I do lifts people up and helps
them understand their own life and their own heart and
themselves." - Karly Randolph-Pitman
"Time After
Time"
They're Playing
My Song: "Time After Time" Written by Cyndi Lauper and Robert
Hyman, Published by Rella Music Corp/Dub Notes Music,
"They're Playing My Song" -
Billboard Magazine - Feb. 21. 1998
Sometimes a
song will be so familiar in one genre of music, people miss the
opportunity to realize it's potential in another market.
However, when it comes to the Cyndi Lauper hit "Time After
Time", Sarah Hart saw the tune as a perfect fit with the
self-penned cuts on her new album. A gifted singer/songwriterwho
is enthusiastically received in both Christian venues and
mainstream clubs like New York's Bitter End, Hart covered the
song on her Sovereignty International release "Goodbye Jane".
"Time After Time" was a hit for Lauper in 1984, peaking at No. 1
on both Billboard's Hot 100 and AC charts.
"I stumbled across
the arrangement when I was learning the guitar", Sarah Hart
says. "I was learning this open-D tuning. I was playing songs I
knew, and just kind of stumbled over the song. I thought, 'That
might be kind of pretty'.
"I played it one
night at the Bluebird Cafe (in Nashville), and the guy who
produced my record happened to be at the show. He came up to me
and said, 'You've got to put that on your record'. So we talked
about it and decided what instruments we wanted to use, and how
we wanted the arrangement to be more laid-back like a ballad and
a reflective thing. That's how it came to be on the record."
Hart says she
first heard the song when she was in seventh grade. She has been
a longtime fan of Lauper's songwriting. Though the song was
originally a mainstream pop hit, Hart felt it worked well on her
record.
"For me, being a
Christian, and this kind of being a Christian record, the lyrics
really took on a new meaning. It fit in perfectly with what we
were doing with the record", she says. "A lot of times, people
think if it doesn't say Jesus or God, there's nothing Christian
or sacred or spiritual about it. But my take on it is that God
created everything good and beautiful, and I can hear 'Time
After Time' and I can say that it is a beautiful, deep song, and
it's very spiritual to me." - Deborah Evans Price
News & Features...
Diocese of Wilmington
Check out the Diocese of Wilmington's latest news
letter "The Dialog" featuring Sarah!
View
article about Sarah only! (171k PDF) or
View entire newsletter (740k PDF)
Special JAM Session!!!!
The annual "McCain & Co. Guitar Pull" offered media
the opportunity to start off GMA Week 2005 with a fun and intimate concert
in a relaxed "living room" setting. The informal jam session, held at the
Renaissance Hotel in Nashville, Tenn., featured some of today's top
singer/songwriters including two-time Grammy Award winner Ashley Cleveland,
multiple Dove Award winner Chris Rice, R&R Magazine's 2003
New Artist of the Year Warren Barfield, critically acclaimed folk/pop artist
Sarah Hart, piano-based pop rocker John David Webster and Ricardo -- a
frequent co-writer and co-worship leader of Israel Houghton and the opening
act for Salvador's current "So Natural" tour.
Pictured (L to R) are: Warren Barfield, Sarah
Hart, Ricardo,
John David Webster, Chris Rice and Ashley Cleveland.
The event offered media a look behind some of
the artists' most memorable and upcoming songs. The evening began with a
devotional from popular author and recording artist Kelly Minter.
Ashley Cleveland's Men and Angels Say
is available on Rambler Records and John David Webster's Made To Shine
is on BHT Records, divisions of BHT Entertainment, LLC. Ricardo's
Unmerited will be available on Waymaker Records May 24. The three
albums are distributed by Word Distribution. Sarah Hart's Into These
Rooms is available here.
