Songs of the Earth

Meghan Lindsay, soprano
Carson Becke, piano & composer

About the Artists

Meghan Lindsay

Praised as being equal to “the best Mozart interpreters anywhere in the world”, Canadian soprano Meghan Lindsay continues a diverse practice as a performer and creator. In 2024/25, she returned to Opera Atelier in the title role of Acis and Galatea to great acclaim. She recently performed Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at Ottawa Chamberfest and will be a soloist in Fauré’s Requiem with Symphony New Brunswick and Brahms’ Requiem with the Ewashko Singers. Her 2024/25 season includes recitals with Pontiac Enchanté, Almonte in Concert, Festival Collines-en-musique, Scotia Festival of Music, Musique Royale, and the Tuckamore Festival. In 2025/26, she sings Pamina (The Magic Flute) with Opera Atelier in Toronto and Chicago and makes her role debut as Mélisande (Pelléas et Mélisande) at Koerner Hall and sings the title role in Tosca with Pacific Opera Victoria

Meghan has been a soloist with Opera on the Avalon, Soundstreams, Ars Lyrica, and The Royal Opera House at Versailles. She has sung 12 seasons with Opera Atelier, and has performed with Pacific Opera Victoria, Odyssey Opera, Opera Nova Scotia, and the Northern Lights Festival, among many others. Meghan is Co-Founder of Collines-en-musique and Co-Director of Festival Collines-en-musique. She is a PhD Candidate in Cultural Studies at Queen’s University, focusing on the role of “impact” in Canadian performing arts communities, and holds a Master’s in Nonprofit Leadership from Carleton University. She serves on the Board of La Fab sur Mill and is on faculty at Carleton University and Queen’s University.

Carson Becke

Born and raised in Ottawa, Canadian pianist Carson Becke has performed worldwide. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, UK, and at the University of Oxford, where he attained a doctorate in musicology. His recordings can be heard on Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube. He forms one half of Duo Octavian, a two-piano ensemble that he co-founded with fellow pianist Suren Barry in 2016. Duo Octavian seeks to expand the two-piano repertoire with their own arrangements of various works, and with arrangements and commissions by other performers and composers. Carson is committed to creating structural changes to the music industry in response to climate change, and the resulting need to create more sustainable systems. His TedX talk on this can be heard here. He is enacting those ideas through his directorship of the Pontiac Enchanté concert series: environmental sustainability is one of the cornerstones of its mission. Carson lived in the United Kingdom for fifteen years: first in London, and then in Oxford. In 2019 he moved home to Ottawa, Canada, and now lives in Wakefield, Quebec, with his partner Madeline, and their dogs Jerry and Neumann. In addition to his freelance performance work, he is on faculty at the University of Ottawa as a part-time professor, and is the Co-Artistic Director of Pontiac Enchanté.

The Program

Songs of the Earth is a recital program that pairs the world premiere of a new Canadian song cycle—The Forest, composed by Carson Becke—with his new piano-vocal arrangement of Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs.

This program has already been performed to great acclaim at Tuckamore Festival, ScotiaFest, and Musique Royale, where musicologist Tom Gordon described the Strauss performance as:

“Easily the most symphonic Lieder performance ever to come from a single pair of astonishing soloists… It joins my shortlist of memorable lifetime performances.”

The Forest (2025)

Duration: 25 minutes
Text: Six newly commissioned poems by poets from the Outaouais region of Quebec

Each poem reflects on a single tree that holds personal meaning—memory, grief, resilience, family, or quiet companionship. The cycle forms a constellation of human experiences intertwined with the natural environment.

The music is through-composed, flowing seamlessly between movements, evoking the mycelial networks that connect trees beneath the forest floor. The result is a sound world that is:

  • Romantic and lyrical

  • Rooted in classical art-song tradition

  • Touched by folk colour and atmospheric resonance

The Forest invites audiences to listen as though the natural world is speaking with us, not simply around us.

Strauss’s Four Last Songs (arr. for voice and piano)

Duration: 25 minutes

Carson’s new arrangement offers an intimate and deeply expressive interpretation of one of the most beloved works of the vocal repertoire. The familiar orchestral landscape is translated into a pianistic language that draws the listener closer, revealing the emotional core and poetic clarity of the songs.

Educational Offerings

In addition to the performance, Meghan and Carson offer:

  • Vocal or chamber music masterclasses

  • Artist talks on composition and collaboration

  • Community-engaged workshops tailored to local audiences