{"id":410088,"date":"2026-07-23T23:55:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T23:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/410088\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T23:55:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T23:55:09","slug":"defiantly-joni-a-singer-songwriter-bares-her-soul-by-muse-ique-at-the-mark-taper-forum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/410088\/","title":{"rendered":"Defiantly Joni: A Singer\/Songwriter Bares Her Soul by MUSE\/IQUE at the Mark Taper Forum\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Vocalist Effie Passero wows the audience performing \u201cCalifornia\u201d as the opening number of MUSE\/IQUE\u2019s Defiantly Joni: A Singer\/Songwriter Bares Her Soul at the Mark Taper Forum. (Photo credit Haoyuan Ren, courtesy of MUSE\/IQUE)<\/p>\n

Created and guided by Artistic & Music Director Rachael Worby, MUSE\/IQUE presented Defiantly Joni: A Singer\/Songwriter Bares Her Soul, featuring vocalists Chris Pierce, Effie Passero, and the DC6 Singers Collective, with the MUSE\/IQUE Orchestra over two weekends July 11-19 at the Mark Taper Forum. The concert offered an intimate tribute to Joni Mitchell\u2019s unique genius, offering a revelatory look at the cultural milieu and musical streams that fed into her art, and then poured out of her Laurel Canyon home and into her unique ways of mixing other genres and artists into her music \u2013 or inspired them to create their own.<\/p>\n

Joni once said. \u201cI\u2019ve never been a joiner.\u201d Indeed, she has only been defiantly herself as a fiercely independent singer and writer, one who even played chords of her own invention that crossed genres and used a folk guitar to be what she always was: a poet, a jazz composer, and a painter.<\/p>\n

Mitchell was part of a fertile folk scene at a particular place and time, namely in her adopted hometown of Los Angeles \u201cCalifornia\u201d in the late 1960s and \u201970s from her home atop Lookout Mountain in Laurel Canyon. From there she blazed her own eccentric trail, writing stream-of-consciousness confessions in a musical style that defied easy categorization. With her singular voice and raw honesty, she both transcended and heavily influenced the stars who orbited around her \u2013 among them Graham Nash, James Taylor, Carole King, Neil Young, and David Crosby. In fact, when he heard Mitchell\u2019s 1971 album Blue for the first time, Crosby recalled, \u201cI felt like quitting the business and becoming a gardener.\u201d Such was Mitchell\u2019s overwhelmingly inventive talent.<\/p>\n

In fact, Joni\u2019s song \u201cCircle Game\u201d featured Crosby, Stills & Nash on backing vocals during a time when she was living with Nash in the same house that inspired his song, \u201cOur House\u201d after she arrived home with a new vase for flowers on their mantle. Mitchell\u2019s chemistry with James Taylor played out in the song \u201cA Case of You\u201d from her zenith 1971 album, Blue. \u201cLove is touching souls,\u201d she sang, \u201csurely you touched mine, \u2019cause part of you pours out of me in these lines from time to time.\u201d All three of these songs were performed to perfection, with Worby sharing background information on how each one came into existence.<\/p>\n

In fact, Worby\u2019s masterful narration during the entire performance opened the doors to an intimate and loving \u201chouse concert\u201d about not only Joni\u2019s music but her entire life, from her birth and education in Canada, surviving polio at age 9, developing her art as a painter and using her art as the cover of 16 of her albums, through her career as a solo performer as well as her amazing ability to inspire others to explore creating music and harmonies that had never been heard before. Along the way, she weathered the storms of celebrity and commercialism, of changing fads and a fickle industry, and always remained true to her own wandering artistic compass.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the order presented, songs performed included \u201cCalifornia,\u201d \u201cChelsea Morning,\u201d \u201cFiddle and Drum,\u201d \u201cBoth Sides Now,\u201d \u201cHelp Me,\u201d and then the introduction of master dulcimer creator and artist Joellen Lapidus who demonstrated why Joni immediately fell in love with the instrument. Lapidus then accompanied the orchestra on \u201cA Case of You\u201d sung by Joni Mitchell sound-alike Effie Passero on vocals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Joni\u2019s life alongside James Taylor was then on display with \u201cYou Can Close Your Eyes,\u201d a beautiful, harmonized duet the two created together, \u201cOur House\u201d performed flawlessly by Chris Pierce along with the two male singers from the DC6 Singers Collective, \u201cThe Circle Game\u201d which Joni performed during her 1968 debut at the Troubadour nightclub in West Hollywood, and then standing bass player Michael Valerio demonstrated the type of sliding bass artistry which inspired Joni to bring fretless bass guitarist Jaco Pastorius (featured on Pat Metheny\u2019s track \u201cBright Size Life\u201d released in 1976) to Los Angeles to record with Joni on her 1976 hit \u201cCoyote.\u201d Both of these songs were performed featuring amazing MUSE\/IQUE bass guitarist Michael Abraham.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Worby shared the interesting fact that \u201cCoyote\u201d was written by Joni while on tour with Bob Dylan, who made her realize a great song could be written about anything given the talent of a true poet. And that she was! Chris Pierce then demonstrated his talent on the harmonica during \u201cI Shall Be Released,\u201d written by Bob Dylan which Joni performed live several times, most notable at The Band\u2019s farewell concert The Last Waltz in 1976.<\/p>\n

One more interesting fact I learned during the concert thanks to Worby was how Joni\u2019s life was massively disrupted in 2015 by a brain aneurysm rupture, from which she slowly, and valiantly recovered\u2026 going on to stun the world in 2022 when she appeared on stage with Brandi Carlisle, one of her countless acolytes, at the Newport Folk Festival. There she sang through her timeless catalog in a voice, deepened with age and seasoned with a lifetime of pain and evolution and hard-won love, but still undeniably and always defiantly Joni.<\/p>\n

And I consider myself one of the lucky ones who witnessed Joni performing live onstage during Cyndi Lauper\u2019s \u201cGirls Just Wanna Have Fun Farewell Tour\u201d at the Hollywood Bowl last August during which Joni performed songs on dulcimer accompanied by Lauper on washboard! Talk about inventive music!\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

Defiantly Joni ended with Effie Passero performing a rousing rendition of \u201cBig Yellow Taxi\u201d featuring the orchestra\u2019s extraordinary drummer Jamey Tate and lively percussionist Mona Tavakoli, during which the audience was encouraged to join in singing the famous refrain. And lastly, Carole King\u2019s hit \u201cWill You Still Love Me Tomorrow\u201d was performed, on which Joni and James Taylor provided background and harmony vocals on King\u2019s 1971 version of the song. That collaboration took place after the three artists got together while recording in three separate but adjacent studios on their own albums! A well-deserved standing ovation then ended the marvelous 90-minute concert.<\/p>\n

It was an evening of painting as much as music, filled with portraits and photographs and stories of Joni Mitchell\u2019s defiant journey \u2013 with Maestra Worby drawing laughs and gasps with her deeply woven tapestry of anecdotes and insights. The already intimate Mark Taper Forum was transformed into Joni\u2019s house, inviting a sold-out audience to sit around the hearth and get lost in Joni\u2019s genius.<\/p>\n

Certainly MUSE\/IQUE proved that Graham Nash\u2019s words from 1970 remain true: Joni\u2019s house is a very, very, very fine house! \u00a0<\/p>\n

Seven performances of Defiantly Joni: A Singer\/Songwriter Bares Her Soul were presented between July 11 and 19, 2026 at the Mark Taper Forum, in partnership with Center Theatre Group, and proudly sponsored by Classical California. For all the group\u2019s magnificent concerts and ongoing drive to make great music accessible to everyone through their education programs, visit <\/a>muse-ique.com<\/a> where you can find information and tickets for future concerts, all of which I encourage you not to miss!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vocalist Effie Passero wows the audience performing \u201cCalifornia\u201d as the opening number of MUSE\/IQUE\u2019s Defiantly Joni: A Singer\/Songwriter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[48,52,51,47,50,49],"class_list":["post-410088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}