2001 Presenter Full Presenter List

Loreena McKennitt

Singer/Songwriter

Loreena McKennitt’s career has spanned 15 years, seven albums and over 10 million records.

Best known for her US Top 20 hits “The Mummer’s Dance,” the “eclectic Celtic” singer/composer will return to her acting and musical roots at this summer’s Stratford Festival as the composer for The Merchant of Venice.

She first started singing professionally after winning the DuMaurier Search for Talent in 1978. During the 1980s, she appeared as an actor and musician in productions at the Stratford Festival. Backed by a family loan and money raised busking on the streets of Vancouver, Toronto and London, McKennitt founded her own record label, Quinland Road, in 1985, and released her debut self-produced album that same year.

In 1991, she set an industry-wide record standard for artist-equitable record contracts, by cutting a distribution deal for the Quinlan Road label with Warner Music Canada. Her album The Books of Secrets has sold four million copies and received gold and platinum awards across the world and two Junos in Canada.