Voices of Nature Mandarin
Voices of Nature Mandarin is a new and exciting expansion project under the Voices of Nature (VON) umbrella. Led and driven by The Artist Response Team (ART), VON has successfully produced award-winning school music programs throughout Canada and internationally for the past 35 years.
VON puts young people in leadership roles to inspire environmental action in their families, schools and communities by offering music-based learning resources that provide environment and ecology curriculum-linked activities connected to the songs. Built upon the pillars of building intercultural understanding, celebrating diverse cultural heritage, advancing reconciliation, and fostering collective climate action, VON Mandarin delivers and engages youth with multilingual songs about ecology and Earth stewardship.
In 2025, the bilingual song “Voices of Nature” 大自然的聲音 won the top-tier prize in the Creatively United — The World We Want contest.
About the project collaborators:
VON Mandarin brings together three West Coast–based singer-songwriters and performers of diverse musical and cultural backgrounds to collaborate on multilingual songs (incorporating Mandarin, English, and Indigenous languages) about ecology and Earth stewardship.
Holly Arntzen is a folk-jazz-rock singer, pianist and dulcimer player who has found a seamless blend of music and love of planet Earth that moves people. She writes songs and produces events on themes that include watersheds, the sea and biodiversity.
D’arcy Han’s music fuses R&B, jazz, soul, pop and Chinese traditions. A graduate with a Master’s in Environment and Management, her thesis explores the role of live music in fostering community building and climate action.
Kevin Wright is a singer of the Bon Scott (AC/DC) / Dan McCafferty (Nazareth) persuasion — hard, melodic rock. He bends his pop experience into crafting high-energy songs with edge that express an urgent call to action to protect life.
Jade Music Fest is grateful to be held on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam Indian Band), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish Nation), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh Nation). We acknowledge our privilege to operate on these lands, and commit to work with and be respectful to the Indigenous peoples whose music and culture encourages us to better listen to each other.