Faun Fables

A category-defying musical entity, FAUN FABLES is DAWN McCARTHY’s vivid imagination come to life in song and theater. It has been attracting a devoted and eclectic following since 1997- with numerous performances throughout the North American Continent, Europe, Israel, Australia, New Zealand and Iceland and with four record releases made available worldwide on DRAG CITY RECORDS.

Dawn is a composer, singer and theater artist whose work is a sea of gorgeous elemental nitty gritty; haunting melodies, breath, stomping, and natural theatricality led by the voice, rooted in the physical body. It is a crossroads where ancient ballad, art song, physical theater and rock music meet.

Her lyrics speak to people of all ages about things like rugged housekeeping, street kids, growing old, sleepwalking and exiled travelers returning home.

Dawn founded FAUN FABLES in 1997 to explore human pathos amid the  animate earth with musical &  physical storytelling forms. Her current FAUN FABLES ensemble includes violinist MEREDITH YAYANOS and multi-instrumentalist KIRANA PEYTON, with appearances by long time collaborator NILS FRYKDAHL of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum.

  • Dawn McCarthy was raised in Spokane, WA by two piano players from Chicago and grew up making sounds and dances with a big family of Italian and Irish descent. Her primary education and inspiration have come from all kinds of unorthodox and self-taught means. At home she developed an ear for romantic, impressionistic and folkloric melodies via Bartok and Debussy while older siblings helped her develop a taste for rock and experimental music.

    Recently, Dawn was honored to study with music theater director WLODZIEMIERZ STANIEWSKI in Poland, whose work since 1977 with his ensemble GARDZIENICE has animated the iconography of historical epochs with song and gesture drawn from anthropological expeditions to living indigenous communities.