Sarah Slean still remembers the first time she heard Joni Mitchell, one of Canada’s most influential singer-songwriters. It wasn’t a grand revelation, but something quieter, more intimate: a teenager, a new CD player, and a copy of Blue that quietly changed everything.
“I fell in love with that album,” she says. “Every song spoke to me.”
It’s a fitting introduction to work that doesn’t just age, it deepens. Songs that once felt immediate and raw gain new meaning over time, revealing layers unlocked by life experience.
“Her songs about middle age and the passing of time don’t really land with teenagers and twenty-somethings,” Slean reflects. “But when you get there, wow, do they ever.”
That evolution shapes the program Slean brings to the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra, drawing on Mitchell’s later orchestral recordings such as Both Sides Now and Travelogue, where earlier songs are revisited through a more mature lens.
For new listeners, Sarah Slean has spent more than two decades establishing a singular place in Canadian music. Signed to a major label at 19, the four-time Juno Award nominee has released 11 albums and built an international career defined by its range. Classically trained from the age of five, she moves fluidly between pop songwriting, orchestral composition, and performance, while also pursuing poetry and visual art. Her work, across concert halls, recordings, and film, reflects a voice that defies categorization and continues to evolve.
She brings that range to the Thunder Bay Community Auditorium on Saturday, April 25, 2026, performing Sarah Slean Sings the Joni Mitchell Songbook with the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra to close the Pops series for the season.
For Slean, it’s that transformation, not nostalgia, that makes the material so compelling.
“It’s the re-casting of that youthful artistic fire,” she says. “Evolving it so deftly into a new mood and sonic landscape… these are completely new works of art that are as strong and vital as their first incarnations.”
These reinterpretations are shaped by lush orchestral arrangements by Vince Mendoza, expanding Mitchell’s intricate songwriting into something even more expansive.
“The orchestra is such a massively expanded palette,” Slean says. “There is so much available musically — and in Joni’s songs there is so much available emotionally.”
That expansion is not just about scale, but about revealing the architecture of Mitchell’s writing itself.
“I think audiences may rediscover how harmonically rich Joni’s musical language was,” Slean says. “Full of jazz, weird chord extensions, unexpected shifts in harmony — the orchestral setting really showcases this unique aspect of her writing.”
Performing with a full symphony shifts the experience beyond sound. For Slean, it becomes something communal, almost spiritual in its intensity, shaped by dozens of musicians working together in real time.
“It’s the fullness and breadth of what’s possible with 40 to 80 devoted musicians all working together,” she says. “There is a reason it moves us in a live setting… it is a collective channelling of something higher than us all.”
That idea of collective expression mirrors what she sees in Mitchell’s songwriting — work that doesn’t shy away from life’s complexity, but instead leans into it fully.
“The excellence and the courage, equally,” Slean says. “You don’t shrink from life and its enormity… you walk right into the flames and report.”
That philosophy has shaped Slean’s career, deliberately avoiding easy categorization. Like Mitchell, she navigates songwriting, orchestral composition, poetry, and visual art — guided by exploration over industry expectations.
“She was unapologetic about wanting to be free,” Slean says of Mitchell. “She insisted on her own evolution… and refused what she didn’t want.”
That independence keeps Slean returning to this music, even after performing it across the country. Every orchestra brings its own character, with subtle differences that can lift a performance from good to something truly memorable.
For audiences, the experience may be as much a rediscovery as it is a performance. While many know Mitchell’s early recordings, hearing these songs in an orchestral setting reveals greater richness — emotionally, lyrically, and harmonically.
“I think of Joni as a great novelist,” Slean says. “She had that kind of penetrating eye that could see into the heart of her own ego, her circle, her times, and the world at large.”
And in that way, the concert becomes more than a tribute. It becomes an invitation to revisit familiar songs with new ears, and perhaps to hear something of ourselves in them along the way.
“Through this music,” Slean says, “I hope audiences will freshly experience the startling wonder of their own existence… how bizarre and fascinating and bittersweet it is to be alive.”
The evening, shaped by reflection, reinvention, and lived experience, offers more than a concert. It becomes a shared moment where music resonates both personally and collectively, a chance to hear and feel these songs anew, surrounded by the power of an orchestra and an enduring voice. Sarah Slean Sings the Joni Mitchell Songbook takes place Saturday, April 25 at 7:30 p.m. at the Thunder Bay Community Auditorium. Tickets are available at tbso.ca and tbca.com.
