Winfield United Church

JOURNEYS is a unique musical experience in the truest sense of the word. Unlike most musicians, Sofie Hartwick does not rehearse her pieces or memorize them so that she can repeat them in later performances. These are true improvisations – transient, occasionally imperfect, yet oh so beautiful, like so many things in nature. The comparison is apt because the music arises naturally, organically, each phrase morphing in the next, rising and falling, ebbing and flowing, taking both the artist and the listener on a journey that has its origins in the spirit – a journey that embraces, then transmutes, the emotional complexities of life into playing that can only be described as inspired, a word that captures Hartwick’s own experience of making music. When she sits down at the keyboard, she says, the music – variously tentative, meditative, lyrical, dramatic – wells up within her, moment by moment, each moment passing irretrievably into the next. What a privilege and joy, then, to have these ephemeral pieces captured so that they can be shared as never before.

– Michael Schwartzentruber