Joni Mitchell

Joni Mitchell, famous singer and song writer, will celebrate Calgary-based Alberta Ballet’s 40th anniversary this season. As revered by fellow artists as she is adored by her fans, the much-awarded Joni Mitchell, 63, is a poet among songwriters and a bold innovator among musicians.

Working in close collaboration with the company‘s artistic director, Jean Grand-Maître, she selected nine songs that not only exemplify her command of a range of musical styles – pop, folk, rock, jazz, world music and their hybrids – but that also reflect her heartfelt humanity, social concerns and anti-war stance. The 50-minute work, performed as part of a mixed program by Alberta Ballet in Calgary and Edmonton, February 8 to 17, takes its title from its poignantly elegiac opening song, “The Fiddle and the Drum.”

Mitchell, who has made Los Angeles her home for many years, is also a visual artist – painting and photography. In a move that even surprised Alberta Ballet, she agreed to design the decors. Large panels, onto which a variety of Mitchell’s images are projected, flank a central, emblematic drum-shaped screen. The simple, skin-fitting costumes, are subtly painted in muted shades.

Rather than ...