“Our new show is a sort of greatest hits, in a way. The stories are from Ireland, Denmark, ancient Arabia and Poland.
“We’re very eager to premier it at the 1st Presbyterian Church—a fine venue. The stories are so hopeful. We’re especially grateful to the Sioux City Chamber Music Association for making this happen.”
— Darrel Fickbohm, actor
Upcoming shows...
McGaff's Dog & Other Strange Tales
• February 15th, 2026 at 2 PM, 1st Presbyterian Church, Sioux City, IA
From the very beginning of the show, you know that you're in for something completely different. The music begins and sets the mood, then the reading takes its turn and the listener is not impatient for one or the other - it is an equal sharing of the dramatic delights of words and sound.
This is the most important part of the process. The writer of the script and the music programmer get together and decide what music is to back up a dramatic segment of the show. Sometimes it's not what you expect it to be! The music puts the emotional "spin" to the actors interpretation.
OUR STORY! In the spring of 2002 a group of international master-level musicians committed to making music in South Dakota began performing programs that combined interesting stories with original, never before heard arrangements of the world’s greatest ensemble music.
“It is amazing how much of our best music lends itself to storytelling. In fact, it is storytelling. This year I was reading a new translation of Andersen’s fairy tales. I remembered my grandmother telling me some of these stories when I was a child in Poland, but I hadn’t yet read them as an adult. I was amazed at how great they were for grown up people, too. I started to imagine an evening full of the same weird beauty and strangeness that I was picking up from the tales...My name is Magdalena...
A brand new show! McGaff's Dog
& Other Strange Tales
Welcome!
The Show
story and sound
Words & Music
mood matching
The concept of the show is an old one: a melodrama or “melody drama,” in which music and words take equal part in the presentation. The lights come up on the actor who begins the story and then the lights go up on the music which follows the situation and adds to its drama!