Dedicated to Clayton
Hope Street House started in 2020 and is Sara’s composition, piano, vocals and production. Was, Clayton’s all things tech – ideas, mixing, mastering, artwork and publishing.
Sara Vancea was born in Melbourne, Australia. As a small girl she discovered the vortex suction of music. At the age of 7, a friend of the family donated a piano and it was placed in her bedroom as there was nowhere else for it to go. Soon she was making a lot of noise by lifting the piano top and pressing down on the sustain pedal while playing the keys. Six months later the piano was sold. She would imagine tunes on her teeth by clicking them together in rhythms and imagining ascending and descending notes.
In the 90’s Sara joined her first band in Canberra band called ‘Filthy Lucre’. One time after a gig, while everyone was grabbing a drink and talking, she put a mic against an empty guitar case and tapped beats – cardboard-box sounding drums. Rhythmic and sparse. So good! Sara is the real-life person behind the character ‘The Girl’ in the post-punk cult movie ‘Dogs in Space’. She was 15 when she moved to ‘Berry Street’ group house. A refuge of invisibility and creativity, in a time when artists could fund their art on welfare.
In Canberra, she became part of a vibrant and chaotic theatre and music scene. She began singing her songs, playing guitar and piano, and became involved in Splinters Theatre, The Defunct Ballerina’s, and various grant funded productions for schools. She feels lucky to have collaborated with such talented musicians/artists; including the late David Branson, who was the great organiser/instigator and supporter of eclectic music and fringe theatre and whose support and energy was pivotal to the Canberra art scene. The pre internet time.
Clayton McDonald grew up in Brisbane, Australia. He sang in the school choir, was badly concussed playing football and excelled in everything, everywhere. He studied dentistry for 3 years, questioned the establishment about mercury fillings and dropped out to study Chinese medicine and massage – much to his mother’s horror. He hosted a lefty radio show at 4ZZZ and played drums in local grunge punk bands. He was involved in politics and activism at a time of peak police corruption in Qld. His father, Morris, was a Train Guard and played the black keys on the piano while kicking a large floor drum with his left foot. He would play at community dance halls in remote towns of Queensland and Betty, Clayton’s Mum, would dance to every song.
Hope Street House was and still is a collaboration of the heart
When the unthinkable happens, everything stops, even the music. The other half of Hope Street House, Clayton McDonald, unexpectedly died in mid-2023. Sara’s partner in love, music and extraordinarily symbiotic friendship.
In April 2024 Sara releases ‘Song for Clayton’. They were working on this instrumental a few months before he died.
‘For you Clayton, in an infinite nowhere-time and vivid-memory, of everything that was exquisitely you and us’
Sara is based in Canberra and receives Australian radio airplay and airplay in the UK and USA. The playlist of the songs Ulterior Kinetic (2020), Lilly Pilly Python (2021), Strange Angel (2021), Viridian Sanctuary (2022 – vocals), Somatic Mind (2022), Aqueous Air (2022), Sensory Empathy (2022), Uncanny Chasm (2023), World Mesh (2023 – vocals), Song for Clayton (2024), Amplitude of Nadir (2024), The Mutualists (2024), Disintegration Alley (2024), For the love of Clayton (2025), Tethered (2025) and Parallel Gesture (2026).
Heart Node – preview
Waterway – preview