Whitney Ross-Barris first saw the Northern Lights as a child. Wrapped in her auntie’s quilt on an old deck chair under a vast Saskatchewan sky – rays of dancing light in pink and green pulsed and rippled above her head. It must be a dream, she thought. It was all so big and she was so small.

Decades later, the jazz singer-songwriter saw those radiant Curtains of Light again – this time in her own Ontario backyard. Having just scraped through the isolation of the pandemic years, she found herself in tears, realizing that, though we are dwarfed by the boundless universe, though we are merely stardust (as Joni says) made of love and longing and wonder, we ourselves are vital light for one another.

Whitney hopes that Curtains of Light becomes a home for you – not simply a sound or a thing, but a soft place for all your heavy thoughts to land, a shared experience, a reason to connect. These are your stories. Behind glowing screens and closed doors, there you are. In the lonely quiet of night and in the tender, naked light after a storm, there you are. Whether you’re trying to hide or stepping unapologetically into your vibrant luminosity, there you are. By writing it all down, playing it all out on her 117-year-old upright piano, Whitney has tried to shed some light on how we are all bound together. And, like those radiant Curtains of Light, we grow, we expand and we recover.

Produced by: Whitney Ross-Barris, Michael Shand Recorded & Mixed by: David Hermiston Mastering by: Jeff Elliot Album Design & Photography: Tracy Walker Recorded at Union Sound in Toronto, ON Strings recorded by: Drew Jurecka, Kevin Fox