The Road to Faerie and other Tales
The Road to Faerie and other Tales: Storytelling and Music
Caitlyn Paxson, Gail Anglin, and Kim Kilpatrick
Storytellers Gail Anglin and Kim Kilpatrick join harpist Caitlyn Paxson present a magical set of tales and songs that explore the world of Faerie. This set includes funny stories about encounters with the good people like “The Woman who Flummoxed the Faeries” and also slightly darker ballads and tales that show the risk of throwing your lot in with the faeries. We will journey with Jack Rowland and Thomas the Rhymer into Elfland and back again! This set is appropriate enough for kids but will hold the interest of an older audience as well. These stories hold the true power of faeries as they were in all of their folkloric glory, and will contribute a sense of history and magic to the Festival.
Caitlyn Paxson was blessed with an early introduction to music and the folk arts and has been performing in various capacities since childhood. She first learned to play the harp at age seven, and has studied traditional music and performance in Canada, the United States, Scotland, France, and England. She performs a mixture of historic music, ranging from the music of the medieval French minstrels to renaissance dances to Irish jigs and marches. She also sings a selection of English and Scottish ballads, and part of her undergraduate thesis included a study of the supernatural in these songs. All of her performances are rooted in a love of folklore, and many of them include stories about the myth and history of the harp and the songs themselves. Caitlyn has performed in a variety of international venues over the last ten years, her most recent performances being at house concerts in the Ottawa area, at the National Arts Centre Fourth Stage, at the 2007 Lumiere festival, and at various private events.
She can be reached by email at caitlynpaxson@hotmail.com or by phone at 613-744-4102.
Gail Anglin’s storytelling has been captivating audiences of all ages for 40 years. In her performances at festivals, in schools, at the National Arts Centre’s 4th Stage, at the Stories from the Ages epic series, on radio and TV, her rich voice creates a mood and brings characters to life as each story unfolds. Her presence on stage has been referred to as “luminous”. Listeners laugh, are thoughtful, and even cry as Gail weaves worlds of words from folk, literary, historical, and personal stories. Music often accompanies her story-sets. A believer in the simple grace and joy of storytelling, Gail has been among a core group of individuals whose active involvement in the Ottawa StoryTellers has helped to make the organization one of the premier storytelling associations in Canada.
Kim Kilpatrick has been a a storyteller since 2001. Born a) blind and b) determinedly independent, Kim works as a storyteller, music therapist and coordinator of volunteers. She has told at the Ottawa Storytelling Festival every year since 2003 and more recently at the Toronto Storytelling Festival in 2008. She has been featured on the NAC Fourth Stage five times and has told stories in schools, pubs, cafes, at museums and other venues. She loves telling all kinds of stories including: personal stories, folk tales, historic, and epic material!
