One of my favourite things at Soulpepper is their concert series. Under the leadership originally of creator and music director Mike Ross and now under Frank Cox-O’Connell, each concert explores a new theme, artist or group of artists, interweaving words and music in a uniquely satisfying way particular to the story or stories that emerge.
This March will see a new concert, Ladies of the Canyon: Joni and the California Scene created by and starring multi-talented Canadian music theatre artists Hailey Gillis and Raha Javanfar, both of whom have been part of the series in the past.
The title refers to Canadian folk music star Joni Mitchell’s iconic album of the same name, written while she was part of the famous music community in Laurel Canyon just outside Los Angeles in the 1970s.
I spoke with Raha Javanfar to find out more about the upcoming concert and what it is about the Soulpepper concert formula that keeps bringing her back as a co-creator and performer.
WN: Why this show and why now? Where did the idea come from?
RJ: Actually, this was an idea that director Frank Cox O’Connell brought to us. He was struck by what seems to be a constant renewed interest in the zeitgeist about Joni Mitchell, and he was keen on us exploring this time in her life. Although this is a place in the United States, there were Canadian artists who were part of that community, Joni Mitchell and Neil Young, for example, and Joni wrote her famous album Ladies of the Canyon while she was there. We asked “If we take that title Ladies of the Canyon where would that guide us?” It actually feels now that we are telling a broader story about Laurel Canyon through a lens of Joni, exploring that very particular time when so much interesting music was happening and these artists had this beautiful isolated haven where they could just create and be so far away from the world while at the same time being only a five minute drive away from downtown LA.
One of the things I love about the concerts is how they weave stories with both music and words.
We have a bit of a formula with these concerts now. The text and the arrangement of the song need to go hand in hand and be doing something together—not repeating the same thing but more like finishing each other’s sentences. With a lot of the concerts we come at the material from a documentary angle which can sometimes be very historical, factual, scientific even. I think that angle gets inside the intellect of the audience and the music angle is what gets inside the heart. To me, that’s where the magic happens, where those two arrows can collide if they are aimed correctly.
So in the process do you explore different things or do you have a regular method?
It really varies. This concert is about Laurel Canyon and that is a very specific music-related topic about a place and a time when specific bands, music and artists existed, so it makes a lot of sense to start with a set list that might interest us, and then think about stories that also interest us, then start to fit the puzzle pieces together; and of course, it’s not the kind of puzzle that just comes out of a box and is perfect. Sometimes that set list might not be the right one; the song choice might have helped to get us to a certain story that we want to tell but then we realize this might not be the right song for it so we have to go back and find the one that fits.
The arrangement of the song is going to have a lot to do with it too; we love our medleys and our mashups in these concerts – bringing together pieces of music that maybe you never would have thought could work well together before. We’re deep in that middle process right now confirming whether or not each song is really, truly, the right one for that moment or if we want to consider something else.
Is it that combination of the stories and music in the format that pulls you back to being part of these concerts?
To me these concerts are unique, very different from the typical review or tribute concert that you might go to. I think that comes from the arrangements, in that we try not to play the song the way the audience knows it. Really shaking up the arrangement can help us to hear the lyrics in a new way and that’s a big part of what really interests me. It’s also that we are not just learning “covers” of the songs but talking about a life, a mixing of the story and the music. The combining of the intellect and the heart is also my own personal north star that I need to come back to in the process, always asking myself “am I always doing that in the moment?” It’s also always an amazing group of people and always fun.
Who else is involved with you and Hailey in creating and performing this concert?
Frank Cox O’Connell is directing, and we have Charlotte Cornfield, a singer-songwriter who is also an amazing musician and drummer. The other two members of the cast are actually both graduates of the most recent round of the Soulpepper Academy which harks back to the series’ earliest concerts created by Mike Ross and Sarah Wilson who were recent Academy graduates at the time.
Are you music directing as well?
Hailey and I are working very collaboratively, so the creation process is very much both of us “all hands on deck;” but for our own brains we’ve delegated Hailey as the writer and me as the music director, although our worlds overlap quite a bit in the process.
Are you creating visuals as you often do for these concerts?
We’re not doing projections this time because we will be in the Michael Young Theatre and we want to really lean into the intimacy of that space. It makes a lot of sense for the style of the show, the folkiness of that era and that music. I think there’s going to be something very intimate about this concert which will hopefully be magical.
Are there any specific songs you’d like to mention without giving anything away?
I think we can definitely say that there will be music by the artists that people would expect for a show like this like Joni Mitchell and Neil Young and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, but hopefully there will also be a few surprises.
Anything else you would like to mention?
Yes, a very big shout out to Gary and Donna Slaight who have been funding these concerts for a really long time at Soulpepper. We wouldn’t be able to do it without them.
Ladies of the Canyon: Joni and the California Scene runs from March 13 to 23 at Soulpepper’s Michael Young Theatre.
TWO OTHER SHOWS TO WATCH FOR
The first, The Wolf in the Voice, comes courtesy of Tarragon Theatre and Nightswimming. Originated with Nightswimming, previews in early February, then opens mid-February for a ten-day run. As Nightswimming’s artistic director Brian Quirt explains, the “wolf” is the vocal break in every singer’s voice, between registers. “Typically a vulnerable spot?” we ask.
“Yes, that is the sense we are using for the ‘wolf’,” Quirt says. “The vocal break and the “ahh-whoo” break’ in a wolf howl. I bumped into the phrase in an Icelandic crime novel many years ago in relation to a teenager whose voice breaks during a concert performance!”
Flip side of the “wolf” as a symbol of exposure is the show’s exploration of how, when a vocal ensemble runs as a pack, they can cover each other’s vocal vulnerabilities, creating soaringly seamless moments.
(On the Tarragon website the cast, Neema Bickersteth, Jane Miller and Taurian Teelucksingh, talk intriguingly about the journey of discovery they are finding themselves on as the show comes together.)
Inside American Pie, the brainchild of Soulpepper concert series founders Mike Ross and Sarah Wilson, brings our story full circle. The show is described as “a docu-musical that decodes the mysteries of Don McLean’s iconic song” – a fitting extension of Ross and Wilson’s fascination with the interstices between story and song. The show takes over the CAA Theatre from March 12 to 30, as part of Mirvish Productions’ Off Mirvish series.
Jennifer Parr is a Toronto-based director, dramaturge, fight director and acting coach, brought up from a young age on a rich mix of musicals, Shakespeare and new Canadian plays.
