Folk duo For Ernest find love and hope at Ravine Vineyard

This summer’s residency at Ravine Vineyard for folk duo For Ernest brings Michael Saracino and Tara Stanclik back to where their musical and life partnership blossomed. 

The two had met many years earlier through one of Tara’s friends, a relative of Michael’s. But about eight years ago, Saracino was playing a solo acoustic set at Ravine, where Stanclik was working as a server. They began talking, and things progressed from there. 

“We became pretty good friends for a couple of years,” Saracino says, “then grew closer together and became partners.”

The 39-year-old Saracino has been playing drums and guitar and singing since elementary school in Niagara Falls. He’s a master of the loop pedal, through which he can record a short snippet on an instrument or via his microphone and accompany himself as a solo artist, which he has been doing at Niagara venues for years.

Niagara-on-the-Lake native Stanclik, also 39, has been singing publicly for just as long. She was a mainstay for years as a soloist at St. Vincent de Paul Church on Picton Street. She is also a long-time member of the singing group Minuscule, led by Laurel Minnes.

During the pandemic, they began getting more serious about writing original music. And when it came time to push some of their songs out via streaming services, they chose to release them under the moniker For Ernest, in tribute to Saracino’s grandfather. 

“I was 17 years old when my grandfather Ernest (Orlando) passed away,” says Saracino. “He was a big influence on my musical tastes. I started on the drums, and he loved jazz, so he showed me Max Roach, Gene Krupa and Art Blakey. I used to spend a lot of time in his record room.”

Saracino estimates that his grandfather had about 2,500 albums in that room. Ernest was a key early member of the Toronto Jazz Society and with pianist and composer Norm Amadio was responsible for bringing some of the biggest names in the jazz world to the city. 

“I remember seeing he had a little note on a napkin from the Blue Note with a message to him from Louis Armstrong, and he got Christmas cards from Duke Ellington every year,” recalls Saracino. “He told me ‘If you want to play music forever, just make sure you have a plan’.”

After Ernest passed, Saracino put a plan into action, attending Fanshawe College’s music production program. At the same time, he was drumming in a series of bands and taking on gigs playing acoustic guitar. 

Stanclik, the second of six children of Richard and Diane Stanclik, grew up on the family farm on East and West Line. Tara began studying piano and voice at about seven years old. Besides singing in church, she performed in musical theatre productions and later taught music at a studio. Eventually, she began playing in some local folk duos with friends. 

With those backgrounds, it was natural that music is at the centre of their relationship. 

The first set of songs the couple worked on during the pandemic dropped last summer as the four-song EP Buildings. The homonym ‘earnest’ would be an appropriate adjective for tracks such as Until We’re Ghosts and Keep Me Warm, heartfelt folk songs that feature Saracino’s vocals up front with beautiful harmonies from Stanclik. 

And they’ve just released Found and Seen, the first song from their follow-up EP, cleverly titled Additions. 

Saracino says Found and Seen originally began as a break-up song, but he accidentally played a minor chord on his guitar instead of a major chord while rehearsing together for a gig. 

“This new chord progression came to me in about five minutes,” he explains, “and a new melody that felt more hopeful. It sounded more like a song about new beginnings. So we quickly came up with some new lyrics, tapping into the moment we met after we both had failed relationships.”

“We were supposed to be practicing for a show we were playing at the Warehouse (in St. Catharines),” adds Sanclik, laughing. “We wrote the song in less than an hour during that rehearsal.”

It’s a beautiful song about opening one’s heart to another, finding hope and feeling whole after a dark period. Again, Saracino takes the lead vocal and plays guitar, with harmonies from Stanclik and a rolling banjo line from Dave Matthews. It was recorded in the couple’s studio at their home in midtown St. Catharines. 

The rest of the songs from Additions will hit Spotify in the next few months.

When they play live, besides their originals, Michael and Tara have a repertoire of almost 200 songs they can play together. 

“We just arrive, we read the crowd, feel the vibe of the place, and just kind of select from that big catalogue of songs,” says Stanclik. 

That includes music from obvious influences such as Bon Iver and Damien Rice and outliers such as Bill Withers and Elton John. 

Meanwhile, the duo has a busy summer ahead of them. For Ernest is scheduled to play at the NXNE (North by North East) Festival in June. In addition to their Sunday night residency at Ravine Vineyard, they are playing Friday evenings at The Good Earth Food and Wine Co. and Mondays at the Hilton in Niagara Falls. 

They’ll also be part of Ravine’s Canada Day lineup of original bands and will be part of the Unplugged North showcase at The Warehouse on June 6.

Saracino will also juggle regular solo appearances at Honsberger Estate Winery, and he will join Stanclik as a guitarist for Minuscule’s appearances at Guelph’s Hillside Festival in July and BC’s Robson Valley Festival in August, where they will also play as For Ernest. 

It seems that with Tara’s help, Michael is doing his grandfather proud.