A Mother's Tale - About the Concert

About the Concert

An evening of music-narration adapation of the mythic tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a mother who pursues Death in the hope of winning back her child whom he has taken.

THE STORY: Hans Christian Andersen is well-known for his beloved fairy tales such as the Little Mermaid, The Ugly Duckling and The Little Match Girl. He also wrote many other stories, among them a tale about a mother whose child is taken by Death and her desperate search to try and bring it back.

Without resorting to trite and simple answers, Andersen leads us on a journey that addresses many of the beliefs, questions and desires that have been expressed by those who have ever faced the loss of a child.

THE MUSIC: Many composers have also responded to the love a mother has for her child, and put into musical words the emotions she feels as she experiences the cycle of life and death.

Edvard Grieg, Johannes Brahms, Gustav Mahler and others have created many beautiful songs and so also have many contemporary composers including Michael Purves-Smith, James Horner and Timothy Corlis as well as two haunting country folk ballads immortalized by Alison Krauss.

THE CONCERT: The mother in Andersen’s tale is required to sing the lullabies that she had sung for her young child, and this provides a natural tie-in for the music we have chosen to accompany the story. To find the way to where Death has taken her child, she must bargain with a series of characters she meets, singing the lullabies that she sang to her child.

Actors Ted Follows and Michelle Fisk narrate the story and bring the characters to life, and the music is sung and performed by singers Jennifer Enns-Modolo, Laura Pudwell, Giselle Sanderson and Daniel Cabena, violist Douglas Perry, guitarist Kevin Ramessar and pianist Sandra Mogensen as they accompany the story.

Producer/sound designer Earl McCluskie transforms the theatre into a mythical experience of light, sound and images.