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February 26, 2026
David Suzuki Foundation
Concert performers and special guests announced for “Legacy: A Celebration of David Suzuki at 90” in Vancouver
Unforgettable evening with David Suzuki and Tara Cullis to feature celebrated artists in Canada and global environmental leaders
VANCOUVER | TRADITIONAL, UNCEDED TERRITORIES OF THE xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (MUSQUEAM), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (SQUAMISH) AND səlilwətaɬ (TSLEIL-WAUTUTH) FIRST NATIONS — The David Suzuki Foundation has announced an exciting lineup of artists and special guests for Legacy: A Celebration of David at 90, a benefit concert honouring David Suzuki’s milestone birthday.
Renowned storyteller, broadcaster and producer George Stroumboulopoulos will host the inspiring evening of music and reflection. The concert will feature performances by acclaimed artists Bruce Cockburn, Chantal Kreviazuk, Sarah McLachlan, Danny Michel, William Prince and Tanya Tagaq, alongside special appearances by Jane Fonda, Al Gore and Rick Hansen. Additional artists and special guests will be announced in coming weeks.
The concert will be held on Friday, May 22 at Vancouver’s Queen Elizabeth Theatre (600 Hamilton Street). Tickets start at $259, plus fees and taxes. Presale access is currently available for Foundation VIPs, donors and supporters with public ticket sales opening Friday, February 27 at 10 a.m. Pacific.
David Suzuki has inspired millions worldwide, strengthened the environmental movement and transformed how we understand our responsibility and relationship to the natural world.
“Music and storytelling have always been essential to social change,” David Suzuki Foundation executive director Pierre Iachetti said. “Bringing together iconic artists and internationally recognized leaders, this event is a celebration of the countless people who have joined David Suzuki on his journey and will serve as a rallying cry for bold environmental action.”
David Suzuki’s voice and vision continue to spark meaningful change. This 90th birthday celebration provides David Suzuki fans and Foundation supporters a chance to honour and thank him and answer his call to action.
For more event details and to buy tickets, visit here.
For more information, please contact Craig Long, Senior Communications Manager: clong@davidsuzuki.org, 604-732-4228 x1262
Note: David Suzuki, George Stroumboulopoulos, artists and special guests are not currently available for interviews.
The David Suzuki Foundation is a Canadian environmental non-profit organization, founded in 1990. We operate in English and French, with offices in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. We aim to collaborate with many different people in Canada, including Indigenous leadership and communities, all governments, businesses and individuals to find solutions to create a sustainable Canada through scientific research, traditional ecological knowledge, innovative policy and legal solutions, communications and public engagement. Our mission is to protect nature’s diversity and the wellbeing of all life, now and for the future. We envision a world where we all act every day on the understanding that we are interdependent with nature and each other.
David Suzuki is a grandfather, scientist, former host of CBC’s The Nature of Things, emeritus professor at the University of British Columbia and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Through radio, television and more than 55 books, he has communicated about humanity’s collective impact on the natural world, which now threatens the future of human life. Among his many accolades, Suzuki has been conferred with more than 30 honorary degrees from universities in Canada, the United States and Australia. He has been honoured with adoptions and names from eight Indigenous nations in Canada and Australia.
Tara Cullis is an award-winning author, activist and president of the David Suzuki Foundation. She has been a key player in environmental movements in the Amazon, Southeast Asia, Japan and British Columbia. She co-founded the David Suzuki Foundation with David Suzuki “to collaborate with people in Canada from all walks of life, to conserve our environment and to find solutions that will create a sustainable Canada through science-based research, education and policy work.”
George Stroumboulopoulos is a globally renowned storyteller, broadcaster and producer, synonymous with music, television, film and the creative arts in Canada. For more than three decades, he has shaped the national conversation through iconic prime-time news and late-night programs, including CBC’s The Hour and George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight, his interview series on CNN and as anchor of Hockey Night in Canada. He also fronted and produced The Strombo Show on Apple Music, further cementing his reputation as one of the most trusted and influential voices in contemporary culture.
Bruce Cockburn has enjoyed an illustrious career shaped by politics, spirituality and musical diversity. His remarkable journey has seen him embrace folk, jazz, rock and worldbeat styles while earning high praise as a prolific, inspired songwriter and accomplished guitarist. He remains deeply respected for his activism and humanist song lyrics that thread throughout his career. On all his albums, Cockburn has deftly captured the joy, pain, fear and faith of human experience in song. Cockburn has won 13 JUNO Awards, an induction into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, a Governor General’s Performing Arts Award and has been made an Officer of the Order of Canada, among many other accolades. He has 22 gold and platinum records including a six-times platinum record for his Christmas album. Cockburn continues to tour internationally.
Jane Fonda is a two-time Academy Award–winning actor, producer, author, activist and fitness guru. Her career has spanned over 50 years, accumulating a body of film work that includes more than 50 films and significant contributions to political causes such as women’s rights, Indigenous rights and environmental protection. She is a seven-time Golden Globe winner and was honoured with the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2021. She accepted The Harry Belafonte Voices for Social Justice Award at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival. In April of 2024, Fonda accepted the TIME Magazine Earth Award. She also received the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in February 2025.
Al Gore is the founder and chairman of The Climate Reality Project, a nonprofit devoted to solving the climate crisis, a founding partner and chairman of Generation Investment Management and a co-founder of Climate TRACE. He is also a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a member of the World Economic Forum’s board of trustees and a past member of the board of directors at Apple.
Rick Hansen is a six-time Paralympic medalist and Canadian icon best known as the “Man In Motion” for undertaking an epic 26-month, 40,000-kilometre journey around the world in his wheelchair. He is the founder of the Rick Hansen Foundation, an organization committed to inspire, create and deliver innovative solutions that accelerate a global movement to remove barriers to inclusion for people with disabilities.
Chantal Kreviazuk made her critically acclaimed full-length debut, Under These Rocks and Stones, in 1997. Since then, the Winnipeg-born and internationally celebrated three-time JUNO Award and Grammy winning singer-songwriter and musician, classically trained pianist, actress, movie producer, philanthropist, humanitarian and proud wife and mother of three has recorded 10 albums, including a live album, a holiday album and a collaboration with her husband and Our Lady Peace frontman Raine Maida. A prolific songwriter, Kreviazuk has written global smashes for the likes of Drake, Gwen Stefani, Pitbull, Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, Carrie Underwood, Avril Lavigne, Shakira, Kelly Clarkson and Kendrick Lamar. Equally committed to helping those in need, Kreviazuk was awarded the Order of Canada in 2014, along with Maida, for their efforts to raise awareness and support for human and animal rights, mental health, education and the environment. Kreviazuk has been an ambassador to War Child for more than two decades and one of the organization’s founding artists.
Sarah McLachlan is one of the most celebrated singer songwriters in entertainment with more than 40 million albums sold worldwide. She has received three Grammy Awards and twelve JUNO Awards over her career and has been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriter’s Hall of Fame. Sarah’s music embodies the art of song writing on its most personal level, and her indelible vocals resonate with people everywhere. Her songs have had a profound influence; “Angel,” “Building A Mystery,” “Fallen,” “I Will Remember You,” “Adia,” “Sweet Surrender,” “World On Fire,” “Possession” and countless others are an inspiration to music lovers around the globe.
Danny Michel is a Canadian songwriter and producer who has built a decades-long career on curiosity and creative risk-taking. Blending rock, pop, folk, world and even classical influences, his “musical A.D.D.” has earned him a devoted fan base, multiple JUNO and Polaris Prize nominations, CBC’s Heart of Gold award and CFMA honours, including Producer of the Year and the Oliver Schroer Pushing the Boundaries Award. Beyond music, he founded the DM Ocean Academy Fund to support a non-profit high school in Belize and has performed at milestone celebrations for Jane Goodall and David Suzuki, as well as toured with Stuart McLean’s Vinyl Cafe.
William Prince is a songwriter shaped by powerful legacies of family and craft, his perspective is both singular and resonant. His fifth LP, Further From the Country, is a striking work of reflection and ambition, marked by clarity, humanity, and emotional depth. The distance travelled on this new album is generational, aspirational and deeply personal. Expansive and declarative, the record finds Prince meeting the challenge of writing enduring songs for an age of uncertainty. A two-time JUNO Award winner, Prince continues to build an exceptional body of work, earning the John Prine Songwriter Fellowship and an Americana Honors & Awards nomination. From Newport Folk Festival to sold-out performances at Massey Hall, from NPR’s Tiny Desk to tours with The War and Treaty and Yola, he has appeared on some of music’s most storied stages. In June 2025, Nipissing University awarded him an honorary Doctor of Letters (honoris causa) recognizing his contributions to music, storytelling, and cultural bridge-building.
Tanya Tagaq is an internationally celebrated artist from Ikaluktutiak (Cambridge Bay, Nunavut). She is an improvisational singer, avant-garde composer and bestselling author. A member of the Order of Canada, Polaris Music Prize and JUNO Award winner and recipient of multiple honorary doctorates, Tagaq is an original disruptor and a world-changing figure at the forefront of seismic social, political and environmental change.
March 2, 2026
North Forty News
Fort Collins, Colorado
Bruce Cockburn Reflects on Faith, Protest and a Career-Spanning Tour Before Sold-Out Fort Collins Shows
by Bill Forman
Career-spanning set highlights classics, global influences, and songs from O Sun O Moon
Over the course of his career, Bruce Cockburn has remained a prominent figure in the music industry, crafting songs that blend spiritual depth with social consciousness. The singer-songwriter has earned 13 Juno Awards (the Canadian equivalent of the Grammy), received six honorary doctorates, and released 35 albums, with more than one million copies sold in his native Canada alone.
Now, Cockburn is out on a solo tour, armed with just a couple of guitars — a stripped-down approach that aligns well with his reputation as a masterful guitarist and poignant lyricist.
“Back in the ‘80s, which is when a lot of people in America got introduced to my stuff, music was more band-oriented, so my guitar parts tended to shrink because I was making room for all these other instruments,” Cockburn recalled in a recent interview. “But more and more commonly over the years, I’ve been writing in such a way that the songs work either with or without a band. And the guitar parts that I include with the songs tend to function like a band — in my mind, at least.”
Over the past year or so, Cockburn has been playing a mix of career-spanning signature songs like “Wondering Where the Lions Are,” “If a Tree Falls,” and “Lovers in a Dangerous Time” alongside a selection of songs from his most recent release, “O Sun O Moon.” Cockburn’s first vocal album in six years — his 2019 album “Crowing Ignites” was entirely instrumental — it features guest appearances by Shawn Colvin, Buddy Miller, and the McCrary Sisters gospel group.
But one song fans won’t hear on this tour is Cockburn’s 1985 hit “If I Had a Rocket Launcher,” which he dropped from his set list when Russia began bombing Ukraine, and he hasn’t played it since. Written after his visit to Guatemalan refugee camps that were under attack by their own government’s military helicopters, it closes with the lyric “If I had a rocket launcher, some son-of-a-bitch would die,” a line that reportedly led to some radio stations fading the song out before the last chorus.
Given changing social attitudes toward violence and the potential for misinterpretation, Cockburn doesn’t know if he’ll ever play it again. “I got really sick of hearing people shout “Yeah!” at that line,” he said. “The idea of that song representing anything to celebrate just wore on me after a while. And eventually, I said no, I’m not doing this, because the world has gotten that way, and I don’t need to further that.”
Musically, Cockburn continues to draw upon the influences of diverse cultural traditions, an approach that dates back to a time when he was determined to create a sound that was truly original.
“I went through a phase where I didn’t want to be derivative of any of the songwriters that were around at the time,” he said. “I mean, I admired artists like Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen. They were great songwriters. But I didn’t want to sound anything like them.”
Instead, Cockburn spent five years going out of his way to avoid listening to them or to any other popular musicians. “I listened to music from everywhere I could find,” he elaborated. “European Renaissance music, Japanese flute music, Tibetan monks chanting, guys playing a log on the beach in Guadalcanal, it was a real voyage of discovery.”
That voyage would continue, in various shapes and forms, throughout Cockburn’s career. He collaborated with a wide range of musicians, including Jamaican reggae artist Leroy Sibbles and his rhythm section, who were featured on his early hit “Wondering Where the Lions Are” and performed frequently with him at live shows. Cockburn also went on a month-long trip to Mali, West Africa, where he jammed with African desert blues musicians Ali Farka Toure and Toumane Diabaté.
Recent albums have found Cockburn incorporating more elements of American blues and early jazz into his music, although his pop and folk singer-songwriter skills are still as sharp as ever. His progressive Christian faith, meanwhile, plays a larger role in his lyrics than in years past, while his propensity for social commentary remains undiminished.
A case in point is “Orders,” which combines both elements: “The enemy outside the gate / The drunk who tags the bathroom stall / The Proud Boy headed for his fall / The list is long, as I recall / Our orders said to love them all.”
“If somebody chooses to align themselves with darkness, it doesn’t come out of nowhere,” said Cockburn. “There’s a reason that they’re doing that. It doesn’t mean that we have to tolerate their actions, but I think we should try to communicate and to confront each other with respect. And that’s something that’s been downplayed in recent years in our culture. Respect and manners and things like that have kind of gone out the window with the internet and other things. But you have to have that. Otherwise, you’re just surrendering to the chaos.”
Photo: Daniel Keebler