Apples from Heaven
Composer Cheryl Cooney and I first met by chance on the tennis court when we were both on vacation in Hawaii. Discovering that we both came from Canada and that her husband knew some of my cousins, I felt an immediate bond. I had the chance to see Cheryl play an afternoon piano concert at a music studio there and loved the grace and creativity that shone through in her sensitive performance. We talked afterward and made a commitment to do a performance together in Red Deer the following summer.
Cheryl is a risk taker; she had never seen me perform, but all the same she agreed to host me at a noon hour performance at the downtown Public Library in Red Deer, Alberta. She offered to improvise on piano in response to my performance of stories inspired by my mother’s Icelandic family who settled in the Markerville area west of Red Deer in 1889.
Cheryl prepared by learning several Icelandic folksongs anticipating that she would play with some of those patterns as she responded to my stories. Neither of us had tried this before, and we only had one afternoon to get together for a practice. Cheryl suggested that I need not pause just for her – she recommended that I keep the integrity of the story and she would find a way in.
On the following day (which happened to be my dear departed mama’s birthday!) we gathered in the theatre of the Red Deer Downtown Public Library with a good-sized group of faithful listeners and launched into our performance.
I have rarely felt such delight as I did on that day. Each one of us took our turn to play with the stories, the emotions, the rhythm, the lyrical sounds. We risked each moment and felt playful with each other. Cheryl gave me room to sing and dance in Icelandic and I hope I gave her room to glory in the music that she had prepared and that she was creating on the spot.
To celebrate World Storytelling Day on March 22, 2017, Cheryl and I are excited to work together again. To add a new twist, I have invited Calum Lykan, the man with the storied kilt, a wonderful young storyteller fresh from Edinburgh. Calum has not done this kind of collaboration before. To my surprise (though why should I be surprised?) he was eager to dive into the game and without having met Cheryl before, he will enter into this whimsical kind of musical story play with Cheryl and with me.
