Name: Sarah Jane Scouten in Campbell River
Start: 2024-12-13T19:00:00-08:00
End: 2024-12-13T22:00:00-08:00
Location: Rivercity Players

In March 2020, Canadian folk & country artist Sarah Jane Scouten was living in rural Scotland. With tours cancelled, days stretched endlessly, punctuated only by the steady unfolding of Scottish springtime, leaf by leaf, petal by petal. Growing up on the west coast of Canada, to her the flora of Dumfries and Galloway was a pageant of scent and colour, altogether new but still strangely familiar.
This is where Sarah Jane was initiated into herbal medicine – hawthorn, valerian, yarrow. The plants’ subtle power drew her onto an unexpected path. In May 2020 she applied to a professional programme in herbal medicine in the UK and qualified in 2023. Training in an entirely different field gave her perspective and space from a career in music which demands everything. It renewed Sarah Jane’s love of live performance, which had been diminished by life on the road. Studying herbs, and just as importantly people, gave her music a deeper dimension and she began to write again.
The result was Scouten’s fifth album Turned to Gold, a road trip album, drawing on Tom Petty, Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris and Christine McVie that the Georgia Straight called “an unendingly lovely record.” It includes a beautifully fitting tribute to the late John Prime (Rose and Carnations), a nostalgic co-write with Samantha Parton of the Be Good Tanyas (Wilder When I Was With You), and a personal family account of medical assistance in dying (The Great Unknown).
Sarah Jane Scouten has been nominated for 4 Canadian Folk Music Awards, a Western Canadian Music Award and an International Folk Music Award. She has performed at Vancouver Folk Music Festival, MerleFest, Calgary Folk Music Festival, Salmon Arm Roots and Blues, Dranouter Festival, and Maverick Americana Music Festival, has opened for Corb Lund, William Prince, Ron Sexsmith, and The Sadies, and shared the stage with Martha Wainwright, The Strumbellas, Allison Russell, Martin Carthy, and Mandolin Orange (Watchhouse).
According to CBC q’s Tom Power, “Stan Rogers was able to do it, Ron Hynes was able to do it, Kate McGarrigle was able to do it – and Sarah Jane Scouten is able to do it.” Hear for yourself when Sarah Jane Scouten returns to the intimate Rivercity Stage on December 13.
The Highway 19 Concert Series is supported by the Province of BC through BC Arts Council and BC Live, and the Government of Canada’s Department of Canadian Heritage.
General admission tickets are available for $20 to be affordable to anyone who wishes to attend, or $30 help sustain this concert series. The choice is yours. Teen tickets are only $5 and tickets for kids are free when accompanied by a paying adult.