Ruth Saphir “Accolades of Time” Album Release Concert

Ruth Saphir – vocals & flute
Kate Wyatt – piano
Summer Kodama – bass
Ivan – Bramford – drums
Genevieve Gauthier – sax

Part of the Orchard of Pomegranates soirée at Café la Ligne Verte

On this, her fifth album, Ruth Saphir ventures into profound internal conversations with her ancestors, with an imagined child, with broken loves. We are invited to journey inward with her, stepping through the Accolades of Time, in a beautifully crafted book of songs. Saphir navigates the deep oceans of time, in a journey of self-exploration that is both personal and universal. In these compositions she harmonizes the tangible and the imagined, as the dream, the nightmare and the awakened reality all resonate.

The album opens with Ancestral Shadows, inviting us to embrace the shadows we carry throughout our lives, followed by the lyrical question: “Where Do Dreams Go?”— dreams being the safe space to escape the grief and sorrows of waking life. Saphir, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, gives voice to her shadows and dreams with grace, humour and sensuality. The album closes with the title track, Accolades of Time, asking “Could we step onto a stage / Into the spotlight, into the limelight / Through the Accolades of Time?” In this album, Saphir does just that, putting her heart vulnerably in the spotlight, inviting us to hear our own stories within hers. 

When Saphir writes “If you really want the rhythm, find it in your body,” she knows what she is talking about. For over 25 years, she’s has been a music therapist and sound healer, working with adults and youths to address their physical, emotional and spiritual challenges. This extensive experience informs her holistic approach to music. “Composing and improvising sustain and nurture my creative soul” she says. Her voice adds a heart-felt, full bodied dimension to every song and her flute solos are like the fluttering of a bird’s wing, soaring high.