Lila Nelson on Mother Courage

HSU's Mother Courage and Her Children composer Lila Nelson and director John Heckel can be heard on KHSU-FM at 1:30 pm Tuesday, Feb. 21, interviewed by Wendy Butler on Artwaves.

The North Coast Journal's Bob Doran interviews Lila Nelson about composing for Mother Courage and Her Children on his Humblog.

Did you write songs (with lyrics) for the show or was it more like musical settings for Brecht's words?

I took the lyrics directly from the script, created melodies for the songs, provided some phrasing direction and created "musical settings" - I like that - for the pieces. And wrote a song for the finale.

Will you be performing as part of the production?

I play piano in the band. And sing a little at the end. This project has been unique in that I wrote the songs and then handed them off to the actors to sing. I am so used to having my primary instrument be the pencil and then the voice and usually guitar; so the voice becomes very connected with whatever I happen to be playing - guitar, piano. Accompanying the range of voices in the cast is a fun challenge. Piano is not my forte, however it has always served me as a compositional tool — so I stuck with it. Courageous, I know.


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