While Brennan is no stranger to the stage, having studied music at the University of Adelaide’s Elder Conservatorium majoring in classical piano and being on the Fringe scene as a piano accompanist for the last four years, this is her first time being centre stage as the star of the show.
Joining Brennan on stage are Max Garcia-Underwood and Chris Neale. The trio first performed A Case of You: The Music of Joni Mitchell at this year’s Adelaide Fringe festival. “We were still receiving quite a bit of interest in the show after Fringe ended so we decided to do a short return season at the Adelaide Cabaret Fringe Festival before taking it over to Edinburgh where, again, we had some really great audience responses and had a very successful run – especially for a self-managed debut act,” she says.
Brennan first discovered Joni Mitchell, the influential Canadian who is considered one of the greatest songwriters of all time due to her string of hits in the 1960s and 1970s, when she was in her early twenties. A decade later, she was inspired to write the show – which is an hour long intimate cabaret with live music – because of the gender imbalance she had witnessed in the music scene. “My first intentions when I wrote the show was purely to showcase and preserve the legacy of an important female contributor to the music industry who, I believe, has been forgotten over the years. However, in presenting and developing this show something interesting and completely humbling has been revealed to me: my target audience is being given a piece of nostalgia. I have now had several audience members approach me after the show to tell me how listening to us perform has brought back memories so strongly it overwhelms them. As a performer, this is a powerful response, and it shows just how much Joni’s music means to people,” says Brennan.
In A Case Of You, Brennan isn’t impersonating Mitchell but rather paying homage with thoughtful interpretations. “I think we capture the spirit and the vocal nuances of her sound but without trying to be her,” she says. “We form a trio of keys, guitar, cajon and percussion. Plus we all sing, so it’s quite a full but gentle sound.” In the show, Brennan details where she was at in her life when she heard a particular song, and where Joni was in hers when she wrote it.
While Brennan says it’s not important to be a Joni Mitchell fan to enjoy the show, if you are one, you can expect to hear a lot of the earlier works from her folk era. “We have a couple of tracks each from Clouds, Ladies of the Canyon, and Court and Spark but I don’t mind saying that Blue is my favourite album.”
BY JOANNE BROOKFIELD
Venue: The Butterfly Club
Date: September 27-October 2
Time: 5.30pm
Tickets: $25 – $32
