You’re Just a Place That I Know

Juno-nominated singer-songwriter and actor Adrian Glynn McMorran his theatrical concert, You’re Just A Place That I Know, to the Charlie White Theatre in February. Based on his latest record of the same name (and described as a “powerful album” by CBC’s Tom Power), the song-cycle tracks the story of Adrian’s Ukrainian grandparents and their flight from WWII Europe. The show is a tapestry of stories and songs examining ancestry and the immigrant experience, with music brought to life by guitars, strings, drums, piano, traditional Ukrainian instruments and the power of a 20-person choir.

Adrian leans into the details of his grandparents’ story, from his grandmother, at 16, being forced by Germans from her Carpathian village into indentured labour a thousand kilometres away; to his grandfather folk-dancing to win cigarettes from impressed Allied soldiers in a refugee camp. But he realized there was more to tell than just his own family’s narrative;

“It dawned on me”, he recalls, “that this band around me had their own incredible stories of ancestry and familial connections, so we branched out beyond just my own storytelling to look at ancestry through a broader lens, through some of their stories, too”. These include: Sally Zori (drums), describing a broken connection with their Iraqi parents and their search for innate ancestry; Marlene Ginader (violin), recounting her Chinese-American grandfather’s story and how some talents lie in the blood; and Chelsea Rose Winsby (vocals), recalling, through story and song, her Cree grandmother’s early life and the effect it had on their relationship.

The resulting theatrical concert is a powerful vision of how varied our ancestral tapestries can be and how universal the potency of our genealogical links are; the “generations in our eyes”.

Adrian Glynn McMorran is a singer, songwriter, actor and multi-instrumentalist based on the unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueum and Tsleil-Waututh peoples, (AKA Vancouver). He has released more than eight critically acclaimed albums, both as a solo artist and with folk music troupe, The Fugitives. Adrian has toured through more than ten countries and been nominated for a JUNO Award and multiple Western Canadian Music Awards and Canadian Folk Music Awards. Adrian is also a working actor, in both film and theatre. He trained at UBC and NYC’s Atlantic Theatre School and is a Leo Award winner and a Jessie Richardson nominee.

Written by Adrian Glynn McMorran with Beverly Dobrinsky, Marlene Ginader, Chelsea Rose Winsby and Sally Zori

Music & Songs by Adrian Glynn McMorran