Goodbye, Strawberry Hill Sharon Minemoto

• 1 Rosebud (for Keiko Robson) 05:54
• 2 Meditation 02:42
• 3 Nenju (Prayer Beads) 03:32
• 4 Eulogy (for Sunawa Minemoto) 07:10
• 5 No Way Out 06:01
• 6 Captive Voyage 05:16
• 7 Ashes Falling Like Leaves 06:21
• 8 Akatombo 01:09
• 9 Dragonfly 06:02
• 10 An Ocean Between Us 05:46
• Total Runtime 49:53

Info zu Goodbye, Strawberry Hill

Goodbye, Strawberry Hill by Sharon Minemoto features original compositions that tell her family’s story, both joyful and heartbreaking, from World War II to the present day.

Following the bombing of Pearl Harbour in December 1941, the Canadian government interned people of Japanese ancestry due to fears of espionage, widespread anti-Japanese racism, and pressure from British Columbian politicians. Japanese Canadians were stripped of their civil rights and nearly 22,000 people were forced to leave their homes, many of whom were moved to internment camps. In 1942, Sharon Minemoto’s mother’s family’s 10-acre strawberry farm in Strawberry Hill (Surrey-Delta) was confiscated by the government, and her family then interned in Slocan, BC.

Even after the end of the war, Japanese Canadians were forbidden to return to the West Coast. They were given two choices: move east of the Rockies or “Repatriate” to Japan. Sharon’s maternal grandparents made the difficult choice to take four of their six Canadian-born children by boat to Japan. As Canadians, they would face years of hardship and discrimination in Japan before choosing to return to Canada.

Sharon’s father’s mother took her children to meet their grandmother in Japan when the war broke out. Without a home, income or father, the family was stranded near Hiroshima when the US atomic bomb was dropped. With his family stuck in Japan, her grandfather was interned in a camp in Moose Jaw, where he died.

With the support of the Japanese Canadian Legacies Society, Sharon composed nine works for her quartet, each inspired by and reflectinng her family’s experience during WWII. These were recorded at Monarch Studios in October 2025 for release on the Cellar Music record label in 2026.

Sharon Minemoto, piano
Jon Bentley, tenor saxophone
Darren Radtke, bass
Bernie Arai, drums & hotchiku

Sharon Minemoto
From age 16, Sharon Minemoto has performed for audiences worldwide. She leads a trio, quartet, and quintet, each with recordings available online and on CD, including CBC Radio broadcasts. Her quartet toured Canada in 2018 promoting Safe Travels and released its second album, Dark Night, Bright Stars, in August 2023.

Sharon has shared the stage with Canada’s leading jazz artists: Cory Weeds, Brad Turner, Jill Townsend, Oliver Gannon, Neil Swainson, Dee Daniels, Denzal Sinclaire, James Danderfer, Laura Crema, Mike Allen, the Vancouver Jazz Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, and Musica Intima, as well as international guests Seamus Blake and Jeremy Pelt.

Awarded grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, BC Arts Council, and Japanese Canadian Legacies Society (JCLS), she studied in New York City for four months with Renee Rosnes and Kenny Werner. Supported by JCLS, she composed nine works for her quartet inspired by her family’s WWII internment experience. Recorded at Monarch Studios in October 2025, they will be released on Cellar Music in 2026.

In 2015, Sharon teamed up with vocalist Melissa van der Schyff for two very successful concerts, one at the legendary jazz club, Birdland in NYC and the other at The Abbey Theatre in Orlando, Florida. In 2019, CBC Radio in Vancouver selected one of Sharon’s compositions as the theme song for their weekly jazz program, Hot Air. In addition to performing and composing, Sharon led the house band for the weekly Pat’s Pub jazz jam session for over ten years.

A seasoned educator, Sharon has been on faculty in the music department at Vancouver Community College since 2000 and sits on the Board of Directors for the Fraser MacPherson Jazz Fund. As curator, she has programmed the popular weekly jazz series every Wednesday evening and Saturday afternoon at La Fabrique St. George Winery since 2022. In her first three years as curator, La Fabrique sold out all 17 shows during the Vancouver International Jazz Festival.

Dieses Album enthält kein Booklet