Everyone has an origin story. A unique set of chapters that chronicles life’s journey. It starts with an egg and sperm, and the woman that bore us into the world, but from there, our paths diverge, plotting their own course across time’s landscape.
Glory Hope Mountain is a musical map of Gloria Esperanza Montoya’s remarkable life, tracing her journey as a Honduran refugee to Canada and translating her incredible stories into song. It is an ambitious and touching love letter written by Montoya’s son, Rolf-Carlos Klausener, first brought to life by his band, the Acorn, in 2007. Glory Hope Mountain was born from hours of recorded conversations between Klausener and his mother, rendered in the Acorn’s unique musical shorthand: Klausener’s evocative lyrics set against a blend of modern pop music experiments and more traditional Central American folk sounds. In the absence of lyrical narrative, the Acorn floods these songs with the overwhelming emotion of family and connection. It’s there in the palpable tension of Klausener’s voice on “Crooked Legs”. His fine tenor mirrors the determination and drive that fueled his mother’s escape to Canada, the country in which he was born: “I won’t feel the pull of the coming day, or the compromise of sleep, ‘cause I’ve got a fire on the soles of my feet.”
It all starts with and egg and sperm, and a woman that bore us into the world, but that’s hardly the extent of the influence our mothers play in our life. Whether or not your birth mother played a significant role in your upbringing, she’s left an indelible mark on your psyche. She is our starting point, her origin story inextricably linked to our own. It’s this biological, maternal connection that makes Glory Hope Mountain so compelling. A decade on, that fire on the soles of Gloria Esperanza Montoya’s feet still burns through the song’s her son wrote about her. Glory Hope Mountain–its music and origin story–is as captivating today as it was upon its initial release; it’s timeless, enduring, and bathed in the beauty of motherly love.
