Heather Dale

Heather Dale is the daughter of Peter and Nancy Dale. Her mother's family comes from Cornwall, though Dale describes herself as a "Celtic mongrel", with Scottish, Irish, and Welsh ancestry in addition to Cornish.

{{Cite news

|date=2004

|title=Heather Dale – Cornish Canadian

|work=BBC Cornwall

|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/cornwall/connected/stories/heatherdalecornishcanadian.shtml

|access-date=August 17, 2021}}

{{Cite news

|last=Reid

|first=Robert

|date=December 5, 2008

|title=A jingle-free Christmas treat

|work=Waterloo Region Record

}} She also has "family roots" in the west side of Ottawa.

{{Cite news

|date=March 29, 2018

|title=Heather Dale Band in Arnprior April 6

|page=24

|work=Arnprior Chronicle-Guide

|url=https://issuu.com/arnpriorchronicleguide/docs/arnprior032918

|access-date=August 23, 2021}} As of 2004, Dale was a member of the Toronto/Cornish Association. She was raised in Scarborough, and graduated from the University of Waterloo with a degree in environmental studies in the early-mid 1990s.

Dale's musical passion began with taking piano lessons and writing poetry as a child. This early exposure led to a familiarity with a wide variety of classical and folk instruments.

At the age of eighteen, while a student at the University of Waterloo, she discovered Medievalism through the Society for Creative Anachronism, and began composing songs inspired by Arthurian legend and other fantasy books she had grown up enjoying. Soon after, she began going to science fiction conventions in Toronto, and there found a welcoming community. She made her very first recordings in 1992, and released her first album The Trial of Lancelot in 2000. Trial included her most popular song, "Mordred's Lullaby", which went viral after release and counted over twenty million views on YouTube as of August 2020.

As a teenager, she developed aspirations of living an independent, entrepreneurial life, modelled after what she could see Loreena McKennitt doing with her career.{{Cite web|last=Strecker|first=James|date=April 23, 2019|title=HEATHER DALE: CELTIC SINGER-SONGWRITER DESCRIBES 20TH CD: "SPHERE FOCUSES ON STORIES OF WOMEN BREAKING FREE FROM SILENCE — THEY FIND THEIR OWN POWER, THEIR OWN VOICE….: LAYERING THE OLD WITH THE NEW MAKES ME FEEL CONNECTED TO MY CELTIC ROOTS, EVEN AS I'M LIVING MY LIFE IN THE 21ST CENTURY. …. A REVIEWER INTERVIEWS PEOPLE IN THE ARTS|url=http://jamesstrecker.com/words/?p=2380|access-date=August 23, 2019|website=James Strecker Reviews the Arts}} Dale founded Amphis Music (officially Amphisbaena Music) in 1998, and it has been her primary record label throughout her career.{{Cite web|title=About Us|url=https://amphismusic.com/|access-date=August 23, 2021|website=Amphis Music}}

As of 2004, she was touring with a four-piece backing band and giving solo shows.

File:OVFF 2009 - Heather Dale and Ben Deschamps (4086954775).jpg

Since around 2005, Dale has worked closely with multi-instrumentalist Ben Deschamps, who has co-written and co-produced with her for much of her career, as well as performing and touring with her as duo and as part of the "Heather Dale Band" (occasionally the "Heather Dale Trio") and providing instrumentation on her recordings.

{{Cite journal

|date=Winter 2008

|title=Toronto's Celtic Songstress – Heather Dale

|journal=Celtic Heritage

|volume=22

|issue=1

|pages=5–7}} Dale and Deschamps spent a decade on the road together before moving back to Toronto in 2019, the year which marked 20 years as a professional musician, according to an interview Dale did to promote the release of her 20th album, Sphere (2019).

In 2006, Dale produced a songbook, The Legends of Arthur, which re-tells some Arthurian legends and provides sheet music for her songs from The Trial of Lancelot and May Queen albums. The songbook is illustrated by Martin Springett.

Deschamps made concert live-streaming platform Online Concert Thing in October 2019, as an option for musician friends who couldn't tour and who were left with no recourse after the earlier streaming service ConcertWindow shut down. As of August 2021, Dale is in charge of Artist & Customer Relations for the platform.{{Cite web|title=About Us|url=https://onlineconcertthing.com/about-us/|access-date=August 23, 2021|website=Online Concert Thing}}{{Cite news|last=Cowan|first=Debra|date=Spring 2021|title=Lemons to Lemonade: Members Who Made 2020 Work|work=New Deal|publisher=American Federation of Musicians Local 1000}}

On April 3, 2014, the Globe and Mail listed her as number six on a list of "the top 10 Canadian entrepreneurial crowdfunding campaigns of the moment" for her Indiegogo campaign to fund "CELTIC AVALON", a self-described "big King-Arthur-themed touring show & concert DVD, and youth educational program."

{{Cite news|date=April 3, 2014

|title='World's oldest toy' exceeds crowdfunding goal by nearly 8,700 per cent

|work=The Globe and Mail

|url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/sb-managing/photos-spinning-top-exceeds-kickstarter-goal-by-nearly-8700-per-cent/article17774579/

|access-date=August 17, 2014

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201025110422/https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/sb-managing/photos-spinning-top-exceeds-kickstarter-goal-by-nearly-8700-per-cent/article17774579/

|archive-date=October 25, 2020}} This campaign raised over {{US$|56,000}} and produced Dale and S. J. Tucker's original musical Queens of Avalon (2016), about the relationship between Guinevere (played by Tucker) and Morgan le Fay (played by Dale).

{{Cite web

|title=The Crowdfunded Musical

|url=http://queensofavalon.com/about-queens-of-avalon/the-crowdfunded-musical/

|url-status=live

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200814002512/http://queensofavalon.com/about-queens-of-avalon/the-crowdfunded-musical/

|archive-date=August 14, 2020

|access-date=August 17, 2021

|website=Queens of Avalon}}

On August 25, 2020, Dale was inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association's Hall of Fame during that year's virtual Aurora Awards ceremony. Dale was the first musician to be inducted into the Hall of Fame since its establishment in 2014.

{{Cite news

|date=August 17, 2020

|title=2020 Aurora Awards Winners

|work=Locus Magazine

|url=https://locusmag.com/2020/08/2020-aurora-awards-winners/

|access-date=August 17, 2021}}

File:OVFF 2009 - Heather Dale (4048372677).jpg

Dale's music is frequently compared to Loreena McKennitt,

{{Cite journal

|last=Kent

|first=Alan M. |author-link=Alan M. Kent

|date=2007

|title=Alex Parks, Punks and Pipers: Towards a History of Popular Music in Cornwall 1967–2007

|journal=Cornish Studies

|volume=15|pages=209–247 |doi=10.1386/corn.15.1.209_1 |doi-broken-date=December 3, 2024 }}

{{Cite news

|last=Quill

|first=Greg

|date=July 28, 2005

|title=Roots – Heather Dale – The Road to Santiago (Amphis Music/MapleMusic)

|work=Toronto Star

|department=What's On Disc}} and she cites McKennitt as an influence, because of her "multi-ethnic approach to modern Celtic music."

In analyzing Dale's portrayal of the Lady of Shalott in her song "Lily Maid", scholar Ann F. Howey notes that "in many of Dale's songs, the lyrics function as a dramatic monologue, so that Dale as a singer "speaks" in the persona of a particular character."

{{Cite book

|last=Howey

|first=Ann F.

|title=Afterlives of the Lady of Shalott and Elaine of Astolat

|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan

|year=2020

|isbn=978-3-030-47689-2

|series=Arthurian and Courtly Cultures

|location=Dallas, TX}}{{Sup|:117}}

Dale's early album The Trial of Lancelot (1999, with songs written between 1996 and 1999), features instrumentation that includes piano, guitars, flute, fiddle, cello, and various kinds of drums. Her instrumentation across her career has combined traditional Celtic instruments (Irish flute, tin whistle, bodhran) with rock-associated instruments (e.g. electric guitar) and instruments from world music, notably the didgeridoo and the udu.

{{Cite journal

|last=Howey

|first=Ann F.

|date=Summer 2012

|title=Famous in Song and Story: Arthurian Legends in Heather Dale's Music

|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43486123

|journal=Arthuriana

|volume=22

|issue=2

|pages=3–20

|doi=10.1353/art.2012.0022

|jstor=43486123

|s2cid=162379620

|url-access=subscription

}} The nine songs on this album all draw on Arthurian legend. According to A Bibliography of Modern Arthuriana (1500–2000) (2006):

{{Cite book

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3C_hGEGdqcIC

|title=A Bibliography of Modern Arthuriana (1500–2000)

|publisher=D. S. Brewer

|year=2006

|isbn=9781843840688

|editor-last=Howey

|editor-first=Ann F.

|location=United Kingdom

|page=546

|access-date=August 17, 2021

|editor-last2=Reimer

|editor-first2=Stephen Ray}}

{{Blockquote

|text="The Lily Maid" consists of Elaine of Astolat's instructions to Lancelot. In "The Trial of Lancelot," various knights speak about Lancelot's guilt and fate, each one influenced by his own relationship to the knight; Lancelot's replies make up the chorus. In "Miles to Go," Guenevere voices her thoughts as she chooses to enter a nunnery. "The Prydwen Sails Again" is a song about the quest to Caer Siddi. "Mordred's Lullaby" is a haunting, disturbing lullaby sung by Morgan (here Mordred's mother) as she trains him from the cradle to seek revenge. "Hawthorn Tree" is the story of Merlin and Vivian, while "Culhwch and Olwen" retells that story [ie the story of Culhwch and Olwen]. "Tarnished Silver" is a song about Lancelot and Guenevere years later. The last song, "Measure of a Man," is about Arthur's death.}}

May Queen (2003) also uses Arthurian legend as its primary subject matter. She re-recorded most of the songs from Trial and May Queen in her later album Avalon (2010).{{Sup|:122}}

Call the Names (2001) has much barer instrumentation than Trial, and according to the BBC features "humorous and poignant" songs inspired by the everyday challenges of Renaissance life.

This Endris Night (2002) is a collection of medieval Christmas music, including the titular song. This Endris Night also includes a trilingual version of the "Huron Carol", a seventeenth century carol composed by Jesuit missionary Jean de Brébeuf at Sainte-Marie among the Hurons. Dale sings the song in Wyandot, French, and English.

{{Cite web

|last=Melhuish

|first=Martin

|date=December 19, 2018

|title=Canada's First Christmas Carol Was In the Huron Tongue

|url=https://www.fyimusicnews.ca/articles/2018/12/19/canada%E2%80%99s-first-christmas-carol-was-huron-tongue

|url-status=live

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210817180303/https://www.fyimusicnews.ca/articles/2018/12/19/canada%E2%80%99s-first-christmas-carol-was-huron-tongue

|archive-date=August 17, 2021

|access-date=August 17, 2021

|website=FYIMusicNews}} Dale's version uses different English lyrics than most other recordings, favouring a more accurate translation of the Wyandot words.{{Cite web|last=Pearson|first=Will|date=December 5, 2018|title=6 must-hear recordings of the Huron Carol|url=https://broadview.org/6-must-hear-recordings-of-the-huron-carol/|access-date=August 23, 2021|website=Broadview Magazine}}

According to Alan M. Kent's 2007 essay "Towards a History of Popular Music in Cornwall, 1967–2007", Dale's music is "explicitly 'Celtic' and keenly Brythonic and Arthurian in theme." Kent identifies Dale as infusing Cornish popular music with "ethereal and soaring female vocalization," placing her in a genre also occupied by artists including Mary Black, Loreena McKennitt, Maire Brennan, and Enya. Despite Dale's inspiration by the Society for Creative Anachronism, Kent notes that throughout both The Trial of Lancelot and May Queen, she makes use of Cornish historical literary material, for instance the story of Tristan and Iseult (recounted in her song "Tristan and Isolt" on May Queen). She likewise draws on specifically Welsh stories. Her song about the legend of Culhwch and Olwen is, according to a 2011 essay by Megan MacAlystre, "one of only a handful of musical settings of the tale to be found", and is "among the most readily available"—the long legend of "how Culhwch won Olwen" is shortened into a "jaunty" five-minute-long song that stands out from what MacAlystre calls identifies as more familiar tales on the Trial of Lancelot album.

{{Cite book

|last=MacAlystre

|first=Megan

|url=https://archive.org/details/welshmythologyfo0000unse

|title=Welsh mythology and folklore in popular culture: essays on adaptations in literature, film, television and digital media

|publisher=McFarland & Company

|year=2011

|isbn=978-0-7864-6170-7

|editor-last=Becker

|editor-first=Audrey L.

|series=Critical explorations in science fiction and fantasy

|location=Jefferson, N.C.

|chapter=Constructing Myth in Music: Heather Dale, King Arthur and "Culhwch and Olwen"

|editor-last2=Noone

|editor-first2=Kristin}}

The Road to Santiago (2005) extends beyond the Celtic styles of her earlier albums, and includes influences from "jazz, art song, shanties, Spanish/North African rhythms and modal melodies, medieval court music and contemporary pop balladry," according to a review in the Toronto Star. The Road to Santiago also features the song "Sedna", a retelling of the Inuit creation myth involving the goddess Sedna that includes archival recordings of Inuit throat singing.

Her song "The Maiden and the Selkie" (from The Green Knight (2009)) is an example of her drawing on Norse and Celtic folklore, both in style (as a sea shanty) and subject matter (the song is about a romance between a woman and a male Selkie).

{{Cite news

|last=Pasley

|first=Noah

|date=March 24, 2021

|title=Songs of the seas: 6 songs from the women of the waters

|work=The Rocky Mountain Collegian

|url=https://collegian.com/2021/03/category-arts-and-culture-songs-of-the-sea-six-songs-from-the-women-of-the-waters/

|url-status=live

|access-date=August 17, 2021

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210817162649/https://collegian.com/2021/03/category-arts-and-culture-songs-of-the-sea-six-songs-from-the-women-of-the-waters/

|archive-date=August 17, 2021}}

Her album Sphere (2019) draws inspiration from the Me Too movement and Time's Up.

{{Cite web

|last=Smith

|first=Ainsley

|date=April 30, 2019

|title=31 Toronto events worth checking out this May

|url=https://dailyhive.com/toronto/toronto-events-may-2019

|access-date=August 17, 2021

|website=Listed Toronto

|publisher=Daily Hive}} Stylistically, Sphere also draws on world music motifs, as well as ambient music.{{Cite web|last=Mitchell-Clarke|first=Lesley|date=September 25, 2019|title=Sphere – Heather Dale|url=https://www.thewholenote.com/index.php/booksrecords2/potpourri/29468-sphere-heather-dale|access-date=August 23, 2021|website=The WholeNote}}

Dale's lyrics are quoted in many of the novels in S. M. Stirling's The Emberverse series, including The Sword of the Lady (2009), The High King of Montival (2010), The Tears of the Sun (2011), Lord of Mountains (2012), The Given Sacrifice (2013), The Golden Princess (2014), The Desert and the Blade (2015), and Prince of Outcasts (2016).

{{Cite book

|last=Stirling

|first=S. M.

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nMAXcot_T74C

|title=The Sword of the Lady

|publisher=Roc Books

|year=2009

|isbn=9781101135587

|page=Acknowledgements

|access-date=August 17, 2021}}

{{Cite book

|last=Stirling

|first=S. M.

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2qYKIG4lhHYC

|title=The High King of Montival

|publisher=Roc Books

|year=2010

|isbn=9781101460061

|access-date=August 17, 2021}}

{{Cite book

|last=Stirling

|first=S. M.

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qmm3Sl3Zj2wC

|title=The Tears of the Sun

|publisher=Roc Books

|year=2011

|isbn=9781101543856

|access-date=August 17, 2021}}

{{Cite book

|last=Stirling

|first=S. M.

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DbCNLebawDkC

|title=Lord of Mountains

|publisher=Roc Books

|year=2012

|isbn=9781101605097

|access-date=August 17, 2021}}

{{Cite book

|last=Stirling

|first=S. M.

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IA6zcy0LdN4C

|title=The Given Sacrifice

|publisher=Roc Books

|year=2013

|isbn=9781101603192

|page=Acknowledgements

|access-date=August 17, 2021}}

{{Cite book

|last=Stirling

|first=S. M.

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3DhBAwAAQBAJ

|title=The Golden Princess

|publisher=Roc Books

|year=2014

|isbn=9781101603260

|access-date=August 17, 2021}}

{{Cite book

|last=Stirling

|first=S. M.

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FaTZCwAAQBAJ

|title=The Desert and the Blade

|publisher=Roc Books

|year=2015

|isbn=9780451417350

|access-date=August 17, 2021}}

{{Cite book

|last=Stirling

|first=S. M.

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uwMmCwAAQBAJ

|title=Prince of Outcasts

|publisher=Roc Books

|year=2016

|isbn=9781101603390

|location=New York

|page=VIII

|access-date=August 17, 2021}}

Tanya Huff's novel The Wild Ways (2011) is dedicated to Dale, "who sang about Selkies and started the whole thing".

{{Cite book

|last=Huff

|first=Tanya

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W0UpxSPkrdwC

|title=The Wild Ways

|publisher=DAW

|year=2011

|isbn=9781101548097

|location=United States

|access-date=August 17, 2021}}

Fellow filker and author Seanan McGuire states in the acknowledgements to her novel Chimes at Midnight (2013), that Dale's album Fairytale was a part of her "soundtrack" while writing the novel.

{{Cite book

|last=McGuire

|first=Seanan

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OJeJzEI4_c0C

|title=Chimes at Midnight

|publisher=DAW

|year=2013

|isbn=9781101635667

|location=United States

|page=Acknowledgments

|access-date=August 17, 2021}}

Author E. K. Johnston cites her music as an inspiration for her novels The Story of Owen: Dragon Slayer of Trondheim (2014) and Prairie Fire (2015), and quotes the lyrics to "Joan" (a song about Joan of Arc from the 2008 album The Gabriel Hounds) in the latter novel.

{{Cite book

|last=Johnston

|first=E. K.

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eoZzBgAAQBAJ

|title=Prairie Fire

|publisher=Carolrhoda Lab

|year=2015

|isbn=9781467739092

|location=Minneapolis

|page=297

|access-date=August 17, 2021}}

• Dances by the Marian Ensemble (1996)
• The Trial of Lancelot (copyright 1999, released 2000){{Sup|:122}}
• Call the Names (2001)

{{Cite web

|title=Shop

|url=https://heatherdale.com/shop/

|access-date=August 16, 2021

|website=Heather Dale}}

• This Endris Night (2002)
• May Queen (2003)
• The Road to Santiago (Amphis/MapleMusic, 2005)

{{Cite web

|title=Heather Dale

|url=https://www.discogs.com/artist/3802771-Heather-Dale

|access-date=August 17, 2021

|website=Discogs}}

• The Hidden Path (2006)
• The Gabriel Hounds (2008)
• The Green Knight (2009)
• Avalon (2010)
• Fairytale (2011)
• My Celtic Heart (2013)
• Perpetual Gift (2012) – A free sample album released digitally on Dale's website
• Imagineer (Audio & Video Labs, Inc., 2015)
• Queens of Avalon (2016) – Cast recording of an original musical by Dale and S. J. Tucker
• Spark (2017)
• Sphere (2019)
• Source of the Sea (2020)
• Endless (2020)
• Incantations I (2021){{Citation needed|date=August 2021}}
• Incantations II (2021){{Citation needed|date=August 2021}}
• Incantations 3 (2021)

• List of University of Waterloo people

{{reflist}}

• [https://heatherdale.com Official website]

{{authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dale, Heather}}

Category:Year of birth missing (living people)

Category:Living people

Category:Filkers

Category:Celtic folk musicians

Category:21st-century Canadian women musicians

Category:Canadian people of Cornish descent

Category:Canadian people of Welsh descent

Category:Canadian people of Scottish descent

Category:University of Waterloo alumni

Category:Canadian women folk musicians

Category:21st-century Canadian folk musicians