Rebecca Foon

Rebecca Foon (born 13 December 1978) is a Canadian cellist, vocalist, and composer from Montreal, Quebec.

Foon currently records under her own name, as well as the alias Saltland, and is a member and co-founder of the Juno Award-winning modern chamber ensemble Esmerine.

She has also been a member of several groups associated with the post rock, experimental, and chamber music scenes of Montreal and New York City, including Set Fire to Flames, A Silver Mt. Zion, and Colin Stetson’s Gorecki Symphony of Sorrow ensemble.

Rebecca Foon was born in 1978 in Canada, and raised in Vancouver.

She is the daughter of art educator and producer Jane Howard Baker, and playwright, producer, screenwriter, and novelist Dennis Foon.

Among her earliest projects, in 1995, Foon teamed up with Spencer Krug (Wolf Parade, Sunset Rubdown, and Moonface) and Rachel Levine (Cakelk), forming the instrumental string/piano/accordion-based trio Fifths of Seven.

In 1996, when she was 17, Foon moved to Montreal from Vancouver, and soon became involved in the city's DIY music scene.

She has been a member of several groups associated with the post rock, experimental and chamber music scene of Montreal, including ongoing collaborations with a number of musicians who are members of post-rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor as well as indie rock band Arcade Fire.

Foon collaborated with choreographer Alyson Vishnovska to perform in the 1999 edition of the Edgy Women Festival.

Soon after moving to Montreal, Foon began playing cello and composing with Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra, a band that formed in Montreal in 1999.

Foon joined in 2000, when the band expanded from a trio into a sextet.

Foon plays on the band's second album, Born into Trouble as the Sparks Fly Upward, released in 2001 on Constellation Records.

The minimalist album was well received by music critics, with Allmusic giving it 4.5/5 stars, and Pitchfork Media giving it 7.7/10.

The band took its first extensive tour in early 2001, traveling throughout Europe.

That year Foon began playing in the associated band Set Fire to Flames as well.

In 2001, she became a member of the Montreal post-rock band Set Fire to Flames.

2001 saw her contribute to the band's debut Sings Reign Rebuilder.

The album was recorded in a century old house apparently bound for destruction.

As such, several sounds usually edited out of the recording process, including creaking floors, paper shuffling and outside noises such as police sirens were left intact on the final album.

The album met with a glowing reception in the press; receiving 9/10 stars from Pitchfork Media, 4/5 from Allmusic, and 4.5/5 from Sputnikmusic.

In 2001, Foon co-founded the chamber rock group Esmerine with percussionist Bruce Cawdron.

The two had met while recording Set Fire to Flames' debut album.

However, instead of using the guitar-focused sound of their other projects, the duo initially focused on marimba and cello, drawing on minimalist classical music and chamber music.

The band initially performed their original music in gigs around Montreal.

The next Silver Mt. Zion album, "This Is Our Punk-Rock," Thee Rusted Satellites Gather + Sing, released in 2003, saw no change in the core line-up, excluding the inclusion of a makeshift choir.

The album was essentially created as a requiem for open and abandoned spaces in Montreal, as well as for similar loss and decay around the world, due to either urban development or military action.

Foon continued to perform live and recorded two more records with the band while she began working on other projects.

Horses in the Sky was the band's first to include lyrics on every track, with Foon contributing to the vocals and also helping mix the recording.

The band released two albums before it split in 2003, and many of their tracks are very minimalist in nature, filled with ambient noise and various other non-musical sound effects, juxtaposed or combined with instrumental music.

Two years later, in 2003, she again contributed to Telegraphs in Negative/Mouths Trapped in Static by Set Fire to Flames.

Recorded in a barn in Ontario, the release utilizes many different instruments, including guitars, basses, strings, horns, glockenspiel, marimba, bass clarinet, saw, cymbalon, hurdy-gurdy, music boxes, modified electronics, and contact microphones.

The album was even more experimental than the previous, and met with mixed reviews from magazines such as Sputnik.

Esmerine released their debut album, If Only a Sweet Surrender to the Nights to Come Be True, in 2003.

Allmusic gave it 4/5 stars and called it "a sublime chamber rock album," stating "A French female name meaning quiet and sensitive, Esmerine is a fitting moniker for the overall sound."

In 2008, Silver Mt. Zion toured Europe and North America.

That summer, Foon and several other members resigned from the band.

Esmerine's Turkish folk-influenced album Dalmak, released in 2013, was awarded the Juno Award for Instrumental Album of the Year in 2014.

In 2013, she released her first Saltland album, which Exclaim.ca called "a captivating combination of genres from dream pop to chamber music to ambient and shoegaze."

In 2020, Foon released Waxing Moon, her first album under her own name, which received international acclaim.

Foon has also composed many soundtracks for film and museums.