"Songs by Animals" Featuring Bass-Baritone Marcus Nance

This powerful new song cycle by composer Michael Donovan and poet John Sobol receives its world premiere. This powerful new song cycle by composer Michael Donovan and poet John Sobol receives its world premiere, featuring bass-baritone Marcus Nance, pianist Carl Philippe Gionet, and additional local singers. Written for nine voices and piano, this all-ages work gives voice to the natural world through a series of poems imagined as written by the animals themselves, set within a northern landscape shaped by beauty, fragility, and change. At its centre is the Ghost of the Woolly Mammoth, who encounters a Polar Bear, Arctic Tern, Bowhead Whale, Krill, Wolf, Moose, Lemming, and Arctic Blue Butterfly. Hailed by The New York Times as “thrillingly powerful,” Nance is a compelling and versatile performer with acclaimed work across opera, musical theatre, and new music. Gionet is active as a pianist, collaborative artist, and vocal coach in Canada and Europe.