Sam Wilson is an award-winning guitarist, composer, and educator based in Halifax/Kjipuktuk, Canada. Her album Wintertides (2024) has been played regularly on national radio including CBC’s Saturday Night Jazz, and was warmly reviewed by The Whole Note, Rhythm Changes, and Jazzmania among others. Sam has performed at jazz festivals across Canada, including Halifax, Vancouver, Victoria, and Calgary. Recent commissions include writing for Symphony Nova Scotia through Upstream Music Association (2023), Tim Brady’s Instruments of Happiness (2025), and Rooted Dance Projects (2026).

Following Wintertides (2024) as a second seasonal place-based album, Sowing Spring (October 14th, 2026) is  dedicated to the melting Magaguadavic River in New Brunswick, Canada. The album’s material arose from a week- long residency along its banks, during which Sam and visual artist Megan Boyle (album artwork), witnessed its complete transformation from ice to water during fool's spring. Blending finger-style guitar with the vastness of jazz composition, Sam incorporates elements of folk, chamber music, and pastoral jazz to evoke wild spaces and the stunning metamorphoses of seasonal landscapes.

The album explores several instrumental combinations, featuring alternately fiddle (Hayley Ryerson), alto saxophone, and bass clarinet (Nicola Miller) as a companion voice to the guitar. Bass (Kyle Tully) and drums (Caito Macdonald) provide a warm foundation throughout. Rendered with transparent intimacy, the arrangements highlight each instrumentalist's inventive spirit, revealing a trust in the tunes and in each other.

"...an immersive contemplation that has one foot firmly in a finger-style folk idiom and the other in lively jazz creations, taken together producing a brilliant hybrid of chamber styles.”- Peter Thelen / Wintertides (Exposé)

“Sometimes on electric guitar, sometimes on acoustic guitar, Sam Wilson, throughout the record, demonstrates a very singular narrative expertise... certainly an original voice that we would like to hear on stage at home.” - Yves Dorison / Wintertides (CultureJazz)

“The young east coast composer and virtuoso instrumentalist displays skill and mature judgement in the performance of her original works. She puts on an exquisite musical display on her fourth recording Wintertides, a homage to the landscapes of the two disparate coastlines of Canada.” - Raul da Gama / Wintertides (The Wholenote)

Sam was raised in Ontario but has made Nova Scotia her home for more than a decade; she currently resides in Halifax. She performs regularly with collaborator Andrew Jackson in their duo project (Jackson\Wilson Duo), as well with her trio that features a rotation of musicians including Caito Macdonald, Kyle Tully, Gabriella Ciurcovich, Jen Yakamovich and Geordie Hart. She has worked with Phillip Greenlief (Elephant Heart), Andrew Mackelvie, Ellen Gibling, Matt Gallant (Borrowers), Nicholas D'amato, Nicola Miller, Music Declares Emergency, Rooted Dance Projects, Upstream Music Association, among others. As a session guitarist, she has supported artists such as Laura Roy, Nicole Ariana and Kaia Kater. She is an alumni of St.FX University and the Creative Music Workshop.