Skye - Debut Album

Written By Tong Wang

Pre-save: August 7, 2026
Release/Launch Party: August 21, 2026


Why “Skye”? I have been asked many times. Well, at first, “Sky” was simply a nickname given by a dear high school friend. It held a certain endearment, a most pure and innocent kind of sweetness, tenderness, youth - it was an incantation that cherished and stood guard over that 14-year-old me, pixie-cut hair, thick-framed glasses, t-shirt and jeans, skipping class to go to West Edmonton Mall to read manga and drink bubble tea. 

From there, that Sky grew into Sky Kim, “the Dancing Lily”, a fictional persona of me in the original fantasy universe of Zenkora - a 17-year-old bubbly and ambitious freshman studying Wish Granting at the prestigious New Verdecas Academy of Magical Arts. 

Throughout the next decade, Sky has seen to a kaleidoscope of different colours, taking on the stage name “Skye” as the fiery red pianist, reconnecting with her Chinese 王 family roots, making her way through winter voids and summer storms to continue finding and making tiny moments of magic. 

This album is about rediscovering and holding onto core truths.  As we cycle through endless shades of Sky(e), we dance, dream, burn, rage, weep, laugh, scream, pray, breathe – we walk again and again and again under the same, infinite, ever-changing sky. We remember. We wonder, and wander. Watching, listening, participating in this mysterious universe with glittering eyes. With magic. 

This album is also a love letter to my adoptive home of Airdrie, Alberta (all the photos are from that same ol’ walk behind the Windwood house around Chinook park!). Thank you for always being the place I return to – to rest, heal, and re-open my heart. Sunsets, thunderstorms, tornados, fox’s weddings, smoke-covered skies, dancing aurora borealis skies, sparkling clear-blue skies on a perfectly silent, sunny winter day… We’ve witnessed it all. Here, together, right at home. 

I invite you to listen to the entire album as a whole, wander under your skies, through your decades, your colours. And remember, in the ephemeral nature of things: some things remain. The sky remembers. The sky tells the story.

So, what does the Sky tell you? 

All my relations, 

Tong 通

P.S. To me, the sky is magic. Is courage. Is truth. Is open-heart. 

Tong Wang

Tong Wang is a Canadian artist leading innovative initiatives across areas of performance, research, and community engagement. Her projects explore the role of art in relation to identity, culture, and current social-political issues. As a soloist and chamber musician, Tong has performed with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, Red Deer Symphony Orchestra, and ensembles across North America and Europe. As a multidisciplinary artist, she has written the libretto of a new opera, “Labyrinth of Tears”, funded by the Canada Council, FRQSC, and SSHRC, participated in the Napoule Arts Foundation Residency in France, and published an award-winning photo-essay in the literary magazine Carte Blanche. Her other projects include the creative performances “Song of Praise”, “Ghiblilane”, “Once Upon a Pumpkin”, and research on the aesthetic of “cuteness” in popular and classical music. Tong recently toured a recital on multiculturalism, “我们Us” in Lunenburg, Montreal, Basel, and presented the interactive concerts “We’re Not Really Strangers” and “My Neighbours Totoro and Claude!” at the Verbier Festival. In 2022, Tong launched the Windwood Music Festival in Airdrie, Alberta to engage with and support rural farming communities through classical chamber music. In 2023, Tong will be touring with Duo Perdendosi across eastern US & Canada, as well as with Duo Incarnadine in Turkey and China to premiere a new commission by Alice Ho, Four Impressions of China. Using diverse mediums, Tong aims to share the power of art to reach across time, languages, borders, and cultures to connect people and kindle a shared understanding.

https://tong-wang.com
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