Soprano Shannon Mercer and Monty Python legend Eric Idle seemed to be unlikely collaborators until Idle created his comic oratorio Not the Messiah. Mercer sang in the premiere during the 2007 Luminato arts festival in Toronto, and then toured with the show. Two years later her performance at Royal Albert Hall with some of the iconic TV show's original cast members was filmed as part of Monty Python's 40th anniversary celebrations.
It all speaks to Mercer's versatility.
Of course she sings the real Messiah too, along with other works by Handel and the great baroque composers. She's a frequent soloist with top orchestras at home and abroad. Her CD Gloria! Vivaldi's Angelswith Ensemble Caprice won a Juno Award in 2009, and her newest recording includes the song cycle Les Nuits d'Été by Hector Berlioz.
Mercer has some 35 operatic roles in her repertoire, ranging from Handel to Mozart to Menotti, and including recent premieres for the Queen of Pudding Music Theatre in Toronto. In late 2012 and early 2013 she sang in the acclaimed Canadian and European tours of Ana Sokolovic's opera The Wedding.
Shannon Mercer grew up in Ottawa. Her grandmother, so the story goes, was found in a basket outside an orphanage in Wales. Embracing its history, the Mercer family joined the Ottawa Welsh Society where Shannon often performed folk songs and eventually found her calling.
Mercer hosts an encore broadcast of This Is My Music this Saturday, March 9, on CBC Radio 2, from 10:05 a.m. to noon in most of the country, 11:05 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Atlantic Canada.