There aren’t many of the veteran folk singers of the golden age you can actually hear these days. Bob Dylan, of course, is one; Tom Paxton is another — and then there is Judy Collins.

It’s been some 60+ years since the Denver classical music prodigy was won over by the hard luck tales and rugged sensitivity of the folk revival epitomized by artists like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. Their music and message lured her away from a life as a concert pianist. Her path pointed to a lifelong love affair with the guitar and pursuit of emotional truth in lyrics. It’s a path she is still on.

Coffee house appearances in Colorado led to gigs at Chicago’s Gate of Horn – and then it was New York, the Greenwich Village scene, and a national, then international career. As Bob Dylan wrote about himself in “Tangled Up in Blue,” Judy is “still on the road, heading for another joint,” in this case, the comfort and great sound of the Massey Theatre in New Westminster.

In 1961, Judy released her first album on Elektra – the first of fifty-some and counting. It was full of traditional folk songs and established her as one of the preeminent voices in a new mass cultural movement. A couple of years later, she began recording compositions by the new, young songwriters, including Dylan and Paxton. In 1966, on her sixth album, she introduced the world to songs by Randy Newman and the first recording of “Suzanne” by Leonard Cohen on the classic In My Life recording. Her next would feature more Cohen and Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now”, another first recording. Albums of enduring power and enormous breadth, they can be claimed as game-changers, with brilliant songs and great string arrangements by another legend, Joshua Rifkin. These albums led to dropping ‘folksinger’ in favour of just ‘singer’. This would be underlined a few years later when Judy’s dreamy and sweetly intimate version of “Send in the Clowns,” a ballad written by Stephen Sondheim for the Broadway musical A Little Night Music, won Song of the Year at the 1975 Grammy Awards.

The 70s also saw Judy direct a film (along with Jill Godmillow) of an Academy Award-nominated movie about Antonia Brico titled Portrait of a Woman, Brico was the first woman to conduct major symphonies around the world, and was Judy’s classical piano teacher when she was young.

In the sixties and seventies, in addition to Greenwich Village, Judy was part of a new music scene that developed in southern California, in Laurel Canyon, where her relationship with Stephen Stills led to her being the inspiration for “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” recorded by Crosby, Stills and Nash. All of this is well-told in her autobiographical book, Sweet Judy Blue Eyes, published in 2011. A few years before that, in 2008, a bunch of talented folks, including Dolly Parton, Leonard Cohen and Rufus Wainwright, honoured her legacy with the album Born to the Breed: A Tribute to Judy Collins.

A long-time social activist since the days of the civil rights and anti-war movements, Judy remains active, working today on behalf of UNICEF and numerous other causes.

At an age when most artists are happy to stop, Judy Collins is as creatively vigorous as ever, writing, touring worldwide, and nurturing fresh talent. She is a modern-day Renaissance woman who is a filmmaker, record label head, musical mentor, and an in-demand keynote speaker for mental health and suicide prevention. She continues to create music of hope and healing that lights up the world and speaks to the heart.

An Evening With Judy Collins is a special, rare opportunity to spend time with a brilliant singer and engaging raconteur whose life and work is a delight to listen to. She is truly one of the great artists of our time.