Concert Review: Nolan & Wylie Wow Audience with Leonard Cohen & Joni Mitchell Love Story

Review by: Brian Adolph

Photo credits: Derrek Owen

The 2025/26 EMCA season opened with a tribute to two of Canada’s most iconic singer-songwriters. Joni and Leonard: The Untold Love Story recounts, in story, song and projected images, the brief romantic relationship and lifelong friendship between Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen.

Covering the period between the pair’s first meeting at the Newport Folk Festival in 1967 and Mitchell’s return to the same festival fifty-five years later, Edmonton singers Dana Wylie and Joe Nolan alternated performing selections from the Mitchell and Cohen songbooks. The opening classics, Suzanne and Both Sides Now, illustrated how the young Cohen and Mitchell—both brilliant poets—recognized each other as kindred spirits.

The two-set, 110 minute show highlighted songs the artists inspired in one another, featuring pieces such as Bird on a Wire (based on a painting by Mitchell) and Rainy Night House (about the pair’s breakup). A standout moment was Wylie’s stirring performance of That Song About the Midway (written about Cohen), where she demonstrated the remarkable vocal range required of any singer tackling Joni Mitchell’s music. Nolan, in turn, beautifully channeled the beat-poet sensibility of Cohen in a moving recitation of A Thousand Kisses Deep (possibly about Mitchell).

Backing Wylie and Nolan were Harry Gregg (bass), Jamie Cooper (drums), Rooster Davis (organ, piano), and Kyle Mosiuk (guitar, vocals), who—along with Wylie—are members of the acclaimed Edmonton-based roots/blues band Secondhand Dreamcar.

Wrapping up with a spirited Big Yellow Taxi, Joni and Leonard: The Untold Love Story left the audience with a deeper appreciation for how Cohen and Mitchell’s lifelong relationship inspired some of the most iconic songs of their generation.