MaMa Faerie

Photo Credit: Athena Pelton

MaMa Faerie is the musical project of Twin Cities-based singer, songwriter & theatremaker Rhiannon Fiskradatz. 

Fiskradatz has an expansive creative practice and is driven by a desire to collaborate with her community of artist friends and others in service of multifaceted storytelling that heals and entertains. She has spent her career exploring the vast landscape of artistic genres through the lens of theatre and now, using her music as the catalyst, is engineering a performance framework that will feature the people and mediums she’s encountered along the way.

A lifelong singer, the artist put music on hold to study theatre in college. She picked it back up again in her twenties, harmonizing to pop ballads in an acoustic duo called The Sinners and later honing her songwriting chops and frontwoman energy with the folk rock trio Lingua Luna. She was known for her intensely emotive delivery and love of layered harmonies. Simultaneously, Fiskradatz dabbled in music direction & composition for theatre, arranging music for scripts that include lyrics but no melody – like Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad. With Lingua Lingua, she translated the Pulp Fiction soundtrack into Renaissance-styled tunes and donned a corset to become the house band for the wildly popular Minnesota Fringe Festival show Bard Fiction (Tedious Brief Productions). The group played regionally and put out two eps and a full length album before calling it quits in 2015.

During the pandemic lockdown of 2020, the artist discovered digital production and developed a bold new electronic sound by blending big beats with introspective lyrics and theatrical soundscapes. The songs are both deeply personal and intentionally universal – remnants of the deep reflection that was common among artists in that historical moment.

Fiskradatz was awarded a songwriting residency at the Tamarack Land Cooperative in early 2022, and she lived and wrote for a week in a repurposed cult chapel in rural northern Minnesota. She dubbed the new project “MaMa Faerie” and partnered with Casey Golden at Good Look Studios to co-produce Anthems for the Apocalypse, a 5-track ep of the resulting songs.

Fiskradatz plans to use her music to stage theatrical concerts in collaboration with a variety of artist friends – think rock opera, live music video, art installation. The songs on Anthems for the Apocalypse are being produced as a Fringe Festival show in August of 2024. 

The witchy songstress counts among her influences rebellious women like Sinead O’Connor, Erykah Badu, and Stevie Nicks. She also admires artists who make textural, nature-focused work, like Ibeyi & Enya. Others currently inspiring her include Sampa the Great, Billie Eilish, Janelle Monae, Fiona Apple & Lhasa de Sela.

MaMa Faerie is a moniker given to Fiskradatz by the young women she mentored during her years creating wild circus spectacles at Circus Juventas. 

About Anthems for the Apocalypse

Other projects/initiatives of the artist

• Co-producer, writer & performer of Songversations, a feminist song, story & sketch series with Shanan Custer
• Manager for the VocalEssence Singers Of This Age, a Twin Cities teen choir engaged in expanding the boundaries of choral music
• Core company member & Co-Music Director of Phantom Chorus Productions, a theatre company creating imaginative performance and educational experiences via puppetry, music, movement & multimedia
• Board member of Frank Theatre, a 35 year old organization that produces works that explore ideas and issues of social, political and/or cultural concern