Waltz With Me
When Maggie Byrne attends the retirement dinner of her old music teacher at the convent school she attended, she discovers she has more in common with the founding nun, Cornelia Connelly, than she previously realised. As events in Maggie’s world progress and relationships break down, Cornelia’s remarkable life waltzes and weaves through Maggie’s, bringing them together through their shared love for music.
Inspired by true stories of the nineteenth-century educational pioneer and reverend mother Cornelia Connelly and an ex-student of one of the schools she founded, Waltz With Me paints a moving picture of the challenges of marriage and motherhood, the calling of vocation, the nature of personal sacrifice for a greater cause and the impact of faith, infusing live waltz, sacred and folk music through the unfolding drama.
Diane Samuels
Diane Samuels is a playwright whose career spans thirty years. Her play Kindertransport was the winner of the Verity Bargate and Meyer Whitworth awards (1993/94), and has been performed in London’s West End, off-Broadway and all over the world. Her plays for BBC radio include Swine, Doctor Y, Hen Party, Psyche and the Woman’s Hour serial, Tiger Wings. Her recent work includes The A–Z of Mrs P, with composer Gwyneth Herbert, and Song of Dina, with composer Maurice Chernick, a new opera giving a voice to the silenced sister of the Bible’s Joseph (of multi-coloured coat fame) and a creative collaboration with an international team of environmental scientists to create Glacier Gifts, a booklet celebrating glaciers and mourning their retreat due to climate change. Diane lives in London.