For Denise Hagan, every note is healing.
The vibrations that roll from her lips or guitar touch souls, change moods and sometimes bring people to tears.
“I’ve had an amazing life. It’s not always been easy, but it’s been an amazing one. If something I say can inspire someone, then it’s worth it,” says Hagan, who has twice survived bouts with a life-threatening illness.
Born and raised in a musical family in Ireland, Hagan uses her music as an opportunity to weave the bardic art of story through song.
She bills her concerts as an evening of inspirational story and song, events where, perhaps, as a listener you’ll walk away with the urge to look inside.
For Hagan, music is more than just performing, stardom or making a ton of money.
In fact, she steered herself away from success in the musical world soon after Universal Music Ireland released her first album in 2004.
Back then, she opened for country super star Shania Twain, touring Ireland and was on the cusp of commercial triumph.
Hagan moved to B.C. in 2009.
“God gave me this gift. It’s not mine to waste on pop songs. I feel very divinely guided,” says Hagan, who just released her fourth album, Numinous – A Soundscape for the Soul.
“I feel like the depth of the healing I can bring to people through this music just blows other things out of the water.”
Compared to her previous three releases, Numinous is an album to meditate to, an opus filled with angelic strains that can soothe a troubled soul and heal a broken heart.
It builds on the techniques Hagan learned while studying “sound healing” in England, a therapy that uses vibrational sound to treat both mental and physical ailments.
Hagan sometimes to use crystal bowls and voice for a healing effect in her live performances.
She says the album grew out of a simple melody, “a scared melody, kind of like mantra.”
“Numinous is not really my composition. It is what I heard in the angelic realms, the dream time,” says Hagan.
“That’s what inspired that. I am strong enough to reveal my inner world and I want to help other people find the courage to do the same. It is where all the answers are.”
• Denise Hagan plays St. Andrew’s Heritage Hall, 22289 116th Ave (just off the Haney Bypass) in Maple Ridge on Saturday, June 18 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20 at the door.