Oscar Wilde's Fairy Tale, The Selfish Giant, Springs to Life With Music & Narration

The Creators

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  Oscar
  Wilde

  Author

  Classic Irish author Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) once told an interviewer, “It is the duty of every father to write fairy tales for his children.”¹ Wilde took his own advice by telling fairy tales to his sons, Cyril and Vyvyan. These tales, including “The Selfish Giant,” were published in an 1888 collection, The Happy Prince and Other Tales. Cyril once asked his father why he had tears in his eyes when he told them the story of “The Selfish Giant.” Wilde replied that really beautiful things always made him cry.²

  In addition to fairy tales, Oscar Wilde also wrote plays, essays, and the classic novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. He is most remembered today as a playwright, especially for An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest, his most famous comedies.

   

  ¹ Hyde, Montgomery H. Oscar Wilde: A Biography. London: Eyre Methuen, 1976, p. 106.

  ² Ibid. p. 107

• 

  Chris
  Beatrice

  Illustrator

  Chris Beatrice’s work has graced the covers of classic books such as Gulliver's Travels and Robinson Crusoe, in addition to packaging, magazines, games, posters, private commissions and other books. His work has been included in several editions of Spectrum, Exposé, Exotique and Painter, receiving two awards for Excellence in Fantasy and another for Excellence in Humor. Chris’ clients include Simon and Schuster, MacMillan, Hyperion and Scholastic. His work has also appeared on display in the Lyceum Theater Gallery in San Diego, California.

  Chris' whimsical characters, magical landscapes and vivid imagery bring the magic of the fairy tale to young and old alike, recalling the Golden Age of children's book illustration. His art focuses on people and character, both figurative and portrait, with animals and creatures that are bursting with life. Myths, legends, folklore, fairy tales and history are the stuff of which his work is made.

  After receiving his Bachelor’s degree from The Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston Massachusetts, Chris went on to work as an artist, later art director and game designer in the computer game industry, while also doing freelance illustration, eventually transitioning to doing illustration full time.

  “Illustrating a classic literary fairy tale like The Selfish Giant is a dream come true for me,” says Chris. “It has truly been a labor of love, and by the end of the project the characters had become real people to me, and the settings real places.”

  Chris now lives in Massachusetts, with his wife and daughter.

• 

  Dan
  Goeller

  Composer

  Dan Goeller is a composer whose colorful orchestrations and accessible compositional style have delighted both audiences and performers around the world. His numerous arrangements, compositions and orchestrations have been published by Word Music, LifeWay Music Group, Brentwood-Benson Music, Augsburg Fortress, Lillenas, and others. In addition to his published works, Dan has also worked on numerous recordings and several tours with artists including Amy Grant, Vince Gill, Michael W. Smith, CeCe Winans, Larnelle Harris, Point of Grace, Nickel Creek, and the Katinas. Dan’s music, often under his own direction as a conductor, has been performed by numerous orchestras and choruses including members of the National Symphony, Nashville Symphony, Arkansas Symphony, Memphis Symphony, South Dakota Symphony, Sioux City Symphony, Cape Cod Symphony,Tallahasse Symphony.

  Dan’s compositions have been programmed on several nationally-televised concerts, and have also been featured in both regional and national radio and television broadcast advertisements. In 2005, Dan started Dan Goeller Music Publishing as a means of offering new and innovative choral and instrumental music. The Selfish Giant is the first picture book with audio CD project in Dan’s recently established Noteworthy Books, Inc. This new company is designed to unite the diverse disciplines of music, visual art, drama and literature into innovative new offerings.

  Dan, his wife Heidi, and their two young daughters live in South Dakota

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  Martin
  Jarvis

  Narrator

  Martin Jarvis is one of Britain’s best loved and most prolific actors. Martin Jarvis’s feature films include the multi-Oscar winning Titanic, the award-winning Buster (with Phil Collins) and The Bunker (with Anthony Hopkins and Piper Laurie). His numerous television roles include appearances in Numb3rs, Marple, Morse, Murder She Wrote and David Copperfield.

  Martin’s career began at RADA as the youngest ‘Henry V’ to play in the West End. In 2002 he won the Theatre World award on Broadway for his title role performance as Jeeves in By Jeeves (music by Andrew Lloyd Webber) which he also filmed for American television. As a Royal National Player in a series of productions directed by Peter Hall and Harold Pinter, he played Jack Worthing in The Importance of Being Earnest (with Judi Dench as Lady Bracknell), Hector in Giraudoux’s Tiger at the Gates, and starred as Jerome in Ayckbourn’s Henceforward… Martin played Hamlet for the Festival of British Theatre in 1980.

  He has narrated Peter and the Wolf at the Barbican, A Midsummer Night’s Dream with City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Egmont with Franz Bruggen and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Martin’s countless audiobook recordings, including Just William, are world wide best sellers. Martin is an award-winning producer/director of radio drama and readings, and as performer, he received outstanding reviews as C.S. Lewis in Shadowlands for BBC.

  Martin is married to actress and director Rosalind Ayres.

  In 2000 he was awarded the OBE by HM the Queen for his services to drama.