Rebecca Foon

Rebecca Foon (born 13 December 1978) is a Canadian cellist, vocalist, composer and visual artist. Foon currently records under her own name, as well as the alias Saltland, and is a member and co-founder of the modern chamber ensemble Esmerine as well as was a member of A Silver Mt. Zion. She also works with her sister Aliayta Foon-Dancoes.

Foon has 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. Esmerine's Turkish folk-influenced album Dalmak, released in 2013, received the Juno Award for Instrumental Album of the Year in 2014, as did their 2022 album Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More.

In 2013, Foon released her first Saltland album, which Exclaim.ca described as a "combination of genres from dream pop to chamber music to ambient and shoegaze". Her follow-up album, A Common Truth, was praised by The Skinny. and was co-written with Warren Ellis.

In 2020, Foon released Waxing Moon, her first album under her own name. In 2025 she released a dream pop critically acclaimed album, Black Butterflies featuring Patrick Watson. She has also composed soundtracks for film and museum projects.

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.

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 musicians who are members of post-rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor as well as indie rock band Arcade Fire. 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. 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, including Allmusic and Pitchfork Media. The band toured in 2001 in Europe. That year Foon began playing in the associated band Set Fire to Flames as well.

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. In 2008, Silver Mt. Zion toured Europe and North America. That summer, Foon and several other members resigned from the band.