Lorne Brown and Diana Tso lead off the 2013 version of Mosaic tomorrow and we can't wait to hear their tales...
Lorne performed at the festival last year and impressed us all with his songs and stories, mostly from North America. He brought along his 5-string banjo and started out with a traditional song from the East coast about a kangaroo sitting in a tree. (Kangaroo?? Nova Scotia? Okay, it turns out it was one of those mondegreens where "carrion crow" got changed over time to "kangaroo" — so, no worries about your knowledge of Canadian flora and fauna...)
By the end, Lorne had everyone singing along to "Hang on the Bell, Nellie" and "The Ship Titanic" — and I have to confess that the latter was a revelation. After years of belting this out at summer camp and making up comic lyrics and new harmonies and laughing ourselves silly over this campy classic, when Lorne sang it I suddenly realized (what maybe I should have realized all along) that this song is essentially not funny. This "singer of old songs and teller of old tales" brings such strength and gravitas to his performances that his rendition — even though we all did get to sing along — made the audience suddenly understand just how horrible this disaster was and wonder why we had ever laughed about it. You could imagine the people standing on deck realizing there was no room in the lifeboats and singing a hymn together as they faced their death. Truly a new way of seeing an old favourite.
There was lots of warmth and humour in Lorne's stories too and we all left smiling.
Diana Tso is new to the festival and comes primarily from a theatre background (she is the playwright and producer of the critically acclaimed play Red Snow, about the Rape of Nanking) with tons of acting roles and some clown study in Paris under her belt. But along the way, she has been digging into the storytelling repertoire and has accumulated a repertoire of Chinese folk tales and myths.
So we can't wait to hear what the dynamic and beautiful Diana will bring us tomorrow — and what our old friend Lorne will bring.
Something old, something new, something from Canada, something from China, a song, a story...
Whatever it will be... here it comes!
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