August 15th – 17th, 2025

Clarissa Fortin wrote her first song at age five. It was a re-working of the popular classic, “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” called “Mousey Mousey,” and it garnered very little praise. After that she took a 15-year songwriting break.

Clarissa spent her childhood in Port Elgin, hoarding overdue library books and searching in vain for fairies on the shores of Lake Huron. She eventually moved to Ottawa for university, and began writing songs again as a way to deal with homesickness. Clarissa composes lyrical odes to spiders, birds, turtles, and occasionally humans. She believes a folk ballad can be beautiful while also teaching you a fact or two about snapping turtle anatomy. She uses music to celebrate the people and places she loves, and to express the weird and wonderful inner workings of her own brain.