Few artists can list “harpist” and “Episcopal priest” on the same résumé, and fewer still can add composer, author and theology professor to the line. April Stace wears every one of those titles, and on her new album, Aphelion, she lets them all speak at once.
Released on October 10, 2026, the record is the most personal work yet from an artist who has spent her life asking big questions, and who has always reached for the harp to help answer them.
Stace’s relationship with the instrument began early. She first sat down at a harp at just seven years old, and that childhood fascination grew into serious study, eventually earning her a degree in harp performance and composition from the University of Maryland. But music was never her only calling. Over more than twenty years, she has built a career that moves between the concert stage, the church and the classroom.
Today she serves as an Associate Professor of Practical Theology at The General Theological Seminary, and she has written and edited books exploring spirituality, culture and religious life.
Alongside that work, she has kept her musical voice active. Stace has released several albums as a solo artist, as well as with her band, Harp 46, steadily developing a sound that treats the harp not as a delicate background instrument but as something capable of carrying deep emotion and ideas. Aphelion is where all those threads finally meet.
The album was born out of a season of upheaval. Within a short span, Stace went through a divorce, watched her children leave home and set out alone on a journey through the landscapes of New Mexico. Each change removed a piece of the structure that had shaped her daily life for years. Instead of rushing to fill that space, she chose to sit with it, and the music on Aphelion grew from that choice. It’s a record about starting over, but it’s honest about how slow and uncertain starting over can be.
The title captures that feeling beautifully. In astronomy, aphelion is the point in an orbit where a planet or comet sits farthest from the sun. For Stace, it became a fitting image for the distance that opens up when the familiar falls away. That distance can feel cold and lonely, but it can also offer a new view of things, and a chance to see one’s life from an angle that was never visible before. Grief, solitude and the slow possibility of renewal all live inside that idea.
Musically, Aphelion shows just how far Stace is willing to stretch her instrument. Across 14 tracks, quiet solo harp pieces sit alongside richer, layered arrangements that draw on contemporary classical music, ambient soundscapes, jazz and global influences. No
matter how wide the sound becomes, the harp stays at the center, its ringing tones acting as a steady thread through the whole record.
The track titles read almost like journal entries. The album begins with “Intuition” and moves through “Holding onto Winter,” “Train Song” and “Writing Again.” Later moments such as “Little Steps,” “Garden,” “Darkness A Gift” and “Wild Patience” hint at a slow, careful healing, before the record closes with “Aphelion / Trisagion,” a finale that brings together the album’s central image and a nod to an ancient Christian hymn of praise. Together, the titles trace a path through reflection, patience and change, without forcing the music into a tidy, single story.
Every song on the album was written and performed by Stace herself. The record was recorded and mixed by Will Russell at Electric Wilburland Studios, while artist Alan Pollack created the album’s artwork, giving the project a visual identity to match its themes.
What makes Aphelion especially distinctive is that it was never meant to be only an album. Stace has shaped it as an immersive musical memoir, combining original harp compositions with poetry, storytelling and visual art. It reflects the way she has always worked: refusing to separate music from faith, writing from performance, or personal loss from the possibility of transformation. In her hands, those aren’t separate subjects at all, but different ways of looking at the same human experience.
These days, Stace lives and creates in the Finger Lakes region of New York, where she continues to balance music, writing, teaching and ministry. Aphelion feels like the natural result of a life spent moving between those worlds, and a reminder that some of the most meaningful art comes from moments when everything familiar feels far away.
For listeners drawn to reflective instrumental music, from ambient and modern classical fans to anyone who has faced their own season of change, Aphelion offers something
rare: an album that doesn’t promise easy answers, but keeps you company while you search for them.
Aphelion by April Stace is out now.
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