Singer
Songwriter
Musician

About Ember

Ember has been performing since she was ten years old. She started writing songs when she was nine, and performed her original work for the first time in grade eight (at age 13). Throughout high school, Ember submitted songs for school projects and would regularly charm her teachers into letting her write music rather than poetry or essays. In high school, Ember was also heavily involved in both school-based and community-based environmental activism. Her early work combined her political opinions with her melodic inventions and was the beginning of a songwriting ethic that combined music and activism for greater social awareness and social change.

After high school, Ember moved to Ottawa, Ontario to pursue her university education. There she began to dip into the world of singer-songwriters and the folk music tradition. Her first official concert was at the small and well-known Ottawa coffeehouse Rasputin's. She also lived on the Quebec side in Hull for a year, which solidified her bilingualism.

Ember continued to perform live in the Ottawa region for two years before transferring to the University of Toronto in 1995. The music scene in Toronto was overwhelming and addictive, not to mention distracting. She immersed herself in the open stages and small cafes, and was very quick to generate interest and an audience, all the while maintaining her schooling as a self-described "side project." During this time, she met several fellow artists, including her now integral bandmate Lyndell Motngomery.

In 1997, after having developed a four-piece band, Ember and crew headed on their first tour to the east coast of Canada. It was a five-day trip and it was the beginning of what is now a full-time, travelling music career. Ember and the band had a great adventure and certainly realized that this was the life they were heading toward. In 1998, Ember graduated from the University of Toronto with a degree in East Asian Studies. In this program, Ember focussed on Chinese language (four years of Mandarin study), religion, philosophy, history, politics, poetry, literature, etc. Her fascination with East Asia (particularly China) has not waned. Despite being out of school for over five years, Ember still intends to travel to mainland China in the future as a "back-pocket" career plan. Two short stopovers in Hong Kong and another in Tokyo (en route to Australia) have been enough to keep her love of the Chinese language and culture more than alive.

The formation of her independent record label, Few'll Ignite Sound, in 1997 highlighted an entirely different side of Ember's personality: the geek. Throughout the six years of operating this business, Ember has become a self-described "business head" who has found a love for accounting, business, and computing. In fact, Ember is a closet statistician (well, closeted until now!), and can pull out pie charts in pretty colours that describe tours, inventory, business development, etc. This interest has brought her into contact with other geeks who have graciously given her instruction in database programming, accounting, and business management. If you want to watch Ember light up, offer her a tutorial in Visual Basic programming! After all, she loves languages.

On a personal note, Ember loves to read and research various topics, and she bakes yummy vegan cakes. She likes to run and swim, and she particularly enjoys having people over for food in her home — a home she covets since she sees it so rarely. One day she'd like to be a mom. Until then, she has a business (and employees) that needs regular encouragement, feeding, and diaper-changing. For now, that will do.

Ember appears on Discovergirls' new CD for the benefit of the National Breast Cancer Foundation. Click on the Catalyst 18 banner to learn more about the hottest album of 2006!

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