UPDATE: Unfortunately, this show has been cancelled.
In a show that promises to combine all the exquisite elements of Elizabeth and Beverley Glenn Copeland’s vast artistry, both musical and theatrical, the Huntsville Festival of the Arts will present the husband-and-wife duo, along with their musical director Alex Samaras, accompanied by members of the Queer Songbook Orchestra, at the Algonquin Theatre, on July 26, 2025 at 2 pm. https://huntsvillefestival.ca/event/elizabeth-beverly-glenn-copeland/
The concert holds special, personal meaning for both Elizabeth and Glenn, marking a return to the Huntsville Algonquin Theatre, where they staged, in 2007, “the Mother’s Tree,” an original musical written by B. Glenn Copeland, in a production involving 350 children from Spruce Glen Public School in Huntsville and collaborating with six professional artists in a performance combing song and multi-media images drawn by the students.
Glenn and Elizabeth had been friends since meeting in 1992. Elizabeth’s diverse career explored many successful avenues as a producer, short story writer, singer, theatrical artist in improv comedy, and acting. “We had been out of touch for a couple of years, and I actually had a dream about him. I told the universe I wanted my mate, and I went to sleep that night, and I had a dream, and I saw Glenn backlit against the full moon,” Elizabeth recalls.
In 2007, after meeting again at a friend’s wedding, Elizabeth sold her business in arts education and moved to Huntsville to live with Glenn, getting married soon after. “Coming back to Huntsville has a lot of connections in terms of our love, but also in terms of our connection with that particular theatre. From there, we started a program that we ran out of Dwight, a children’s program, and that was the beginning of our Kid Playhouse productions, which we then carried out to the Maritimes for 12 years,” Elizabeth outlines.
Huntsville is an integral aspect of Glenn’s long vocation as a song writer and thoughtful sound experimentalist. Glenn began his professional career in the early 1970’s as a guitarist and singer, possessing a commanding and genuinely emotional vocal range, effortlessly integrating jazz, gospel, blues and classical music into his compositions and enthralling live performances. Known for his rich and nuanced vocals, Glenn was regularly engaged to sing with various artists’ projects of that era, including Bruce Cockburn, Ken Friesen and others.
Glenn discovered the north in his late twenties. “You know I was born in Philadelphia and I went to school in Toronto, [and] in Montreal to McGill. And, you know, there was something going on there, but when I ventured north, and I just kept going, all of a sudden, I hit these rocks. And I thought, oh, oh, this is home,” Glenn remembers. “I was only about 26 or so when I discovered that. And I actually managed to get a place in the middle of winter to be able to stay for almost nothing, and I would listen to the few pieces of music of other people (Miles Davis, Marvin Gaye were among the few Sony Walkman tapes he had with him) that I really loved. And I sometimes would troop through the woods in the snow, listening to their things, that I thought was just outrageously gorgeous, and yeah, then that was my beginning, my love affair with Muskoka.”
In 1986, Glenn recorded a seminal album called ‘Keyboard Fantasies’ in Huntsville, aided by producer Collen Veitch. At that point in his career, Glenn was primarily known for composing music for children’s television, such as Sesame Street, and for his performance on Shining Time Station and Mr. Dressup, where he appeared for over twenty years. Restricted in writing material that expressed his own inner feelings, experiences, and insights, Glenn recorded ‘Keyboard Fantasies’ in an attempt to keep his own musical work alive through his own self-realized recordings.
The music Glenn discovered during that recording process is challenging to classify, especially given the time period in which it was recorded and the fact that the technology Glenn employed was still in its infancy. Spectacularly, he achieved a work of art that has proven to be, and remains, timeless. “My favourite art form is not music. It’s actually dance. But I was supposed to do music in this lifetime. So, I ended up doing it,” Glenn points out, describing his attraction to the equipment he utilized, particularly the Roland Drum machine, at the heart of those singular tracks. Remarkably, he managed to encapsulate the natural environment in which he immersed himself and recorded – the deeply forested environs of Limberlost. Ethereal, hypnotic, and richly spiritual, experimental and startlingly relevant, it underscores the compositional grace that has informed Glenn’s subsequent works.
THE LAKE SUTRA: Beverly Glenn-Copeland’s Keyboard Fantasies (Short Film)
The album received modest, disappointing attention upon its release, but astonishingly, in 2015, it was rediscovered by an audiophile fan and Japanese collector named Ryota Masuko. That rediscovery ignited a massive resurgence and international acclaim for B. Glenn Copeland’s work, paving the way for him and Elizabeth to collaborate on and develop several productions, both musically and theatrically.
Glenn continues to record and produce albums. His 2023 release, ‘The One’s Ahead,’ is a perfect synthesis of poignant elegiac lyrics — his voice resonant and loving, and evocative songwriting, informed by Glenn’s lifelong practice of Nichiren Buddhism and his pursuit and advocacy for justice and equality for all minorities.
The One’s Ahead.
Elizabeth and Beverley Glenn Copeland had been vigorously working on a new television series pilot, ‘Caring Cabin,’ designed to teach children about the values of caring for the planet, community, and resilience.
Despite a diagnosis in 2024 of a major cognitive disorder, which has hampered some of Glenn’s activities, both he and Elizabeth remain optimistic that with treatment and medications, his artistic abilities will prevail. Their love and care for each other are the steadfast foundation with which they face the challenge.
Throughout his musical life, Glenn has always championed the principal that music, all music, is universal, inherent in the pulsing essence of all that breathes and lives, seeing his gift, his abilities, more as a receiver, beyond such paltry classification as to who might write it down, keenly aware that the sharing with others is the real and truest lasting gift.
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My wife and i had the pleasure of knowing the Copelands during our day’s as owner’s / caretakers of Spencer’s Tall Trees. We actually hosted his wedding at the restaurant. An amazing human being is all i can say
Just listened to B. Glenn Copeland’s song ‘The Ones Ahead’.
His unique voice and the stirring lyrics are such a gift to us ….take a listen.