DEBORAH HENSON-CONANT - PRESS QUOTES

New York Times
“Reshaping the serenely Olympian harp into a jazz instrument by warping it closer to the Blues.” Gene Santoro

Boston Globe
"A combination of Leonard Bernstein, Steven Tyler and Xena, the Warrior Princess." Ed Siegel

"Whatever it is that transfixes an audience, she has it." Catherine Peterson

Austin American-Statesman
"Born to entertain ... dazzling harp playing, gorgeous jazz/pop singing, comic timing and impressive songwriting. Her program shows that the harp is at home with flamenco and Latin American music as it is with Arabic and Celtic music. Henson-Conant is astonishly deft at imitating those styles with orchestrations that are as fresh and exuberant as her stage personality." Jerry Young

NPR: On Point Radio
"Virtuoso out-of-the box harpist Deborah Henson-Conant is known as the rockin’ bad girl of the harp world. She took the ancient instrument off its pedestal, cocked it on her hip, and made it play everything from Mexican cantina music to Brubeck to gut-bucket blues and sounds like Van Halen."

Joan Rivers
“She may look like an angel, but she plays devilishly well.”

NPR: Scott Simon
“Imagine the talented love-child of André Previn and Lucille Ball.”

CBS “Sunday Morning”
“A confident and exciting entertainer ... Deborah Henson-Conant delights in musical adventure” Billy Taylor

NBC “Today Show”
“Pushing the envelope ... freeing herself and her instrument... that’s what Deborah Henson-Conant’s music is all about.” Jamie Gangel

Los Angeles Times
"Indeed, her hands and voice alike speak wth an unprecedented eloquence." Leonard Feather

Denver Post
"She's doing for the harp what Chuck Berry and Elvis did for the guitar...Electrified and unzipped ..." Jeff Bradley

Chicago Tribune
“Deborah Henson-Conant has played with the best in the mainly male genre and is drawing raves from those who encounter her intriguing music… she has also become a role model." Brenda Herrmann

San Francisco Examiner
“She set the crowd afire ... Strong fingers, quick mind… [she] puts harp and soul into it.” Phil Elwood

The Salt Lake Tribune
"A performance artist to say the least … [her performance] immediately mesmerized the audience and established Henson-Conant’s extreme skill as an entertainer. She ended with her own “Baroque Flamenco.” This was a real tour de force – especially the cadenza section where Henson-Conant let loose every harp trick imaginable." Jeff Manookian

Grand Rapids Press
Calling Henson-Conant a harpist is like referring to Joe DiMaggio as a guy with a bat. Technically, it’s accurate, but you’re just scratching the surface. ... She sings like a gospel singer with a hint of an Irish lilt. She writes quirky songs such as “Belinda,” a Spanish-flavored love song about a willow tree. ... She acts in character and costume, tells stories and cracks up an audience with insightful observations about aging, record sales and lugging around a harp…Oh, and she certainly does play a wicked harp.” Jeff Kaczmarczyk

Christian Science Monitor
“In concert, Henson-Conant looks like an athlete at times … shoulder muscles strain and flex… Other times … the lift and sweep of her arms could be a ballet move from ‘Swan Lake.’” Laura Van Tuyl

Downbeat Magazine 
“…a harp of a different color. She’s making it swing, she’s improvising and taking chances, she’s stretching out like a horn player." Bill Milkowsi

Doc Severinsen
“You play the !@#%! out of that thing!”

The Boston Phoenix
“She set up songs with anecdotes that balanced whimsey, innocence and sophistication, then tightened the screws with solid music.” Bob Blumenthal

Rex Reed
“…a harpist and poet who knows how to blend rhapsodic harmonies with dark purple lyrical twists that force you to listen twice before final comprehension sets in.”

Buffalo News
"Plays the harp like a dream, sings and plays the blues with a deep spirituality, expressiveness and harmonic sense matched by few other performers today, and animates everything she touches with a spine-tingling sense of gently propulsive rhythmic drive.” Herman Trotter

The Wall Street Journal
“A phenomenal harpist-performer." B. Schortt

Amazon.com
"With her cobalt-blue electric Irish harp slung around her neck, she gives Celtic bardery a new image." John Dilberto

The Washington Times
“Bright, brash and beautiful, Deborah Henson-Conant bares her sensual allure to win over an audience. After all, playing jazz on the harp takes pluck, so Ms. Henson-Conant has to bank on an electric performance…” Patrick Butters

Pittsburgh Tribune
"…a mischievous performer who can take off on extended jazz jams and return to classically inspired licks. Playing her harp at one moment like an electric guitar, like a percussion instrument the next, Henson-Conant proved she is master of a highly unusual musical niche" Unknown

Plain Dealer (Cleveland)
“[She] dresses like a showgirl, plays the pants off the harp and tells tall tales with the ease of a stand-up comic. Imagine a talkative Harpo Marx in a mini-skirt and you begin to get the picture.” Donald Rosenberg

Richmond Times Dispatch
“...a stunning original musician and a warm and amusing raconteur ... who dispells the stereotype of the introverted jazz musician.” Gordon Bly

Glasgow Herald
“Melodic warmth, harmonic sophistication and the ability to swing her head off…” Elliot Meadow

Arizona Daily News
“She dresses like one of the Rolling Stones and strums an instrument that’s as close to heaven as many of us get... never has a musician seemed equally at home at Wolftrap and Lollapalooza” Unknown

Buffalo Beat
Expect fire, folks; this will not be your average evening at the orchestra where audience members politely applaud and feign interest. Henson-Conant will have the audience and the orchestra members on the edge of their seats... Jeff Miers

The Blade (Toledo)
"Deborah Henson-Conant is a one-woman dynamo, a visionary harp virtuoso with a sense of humor, a flair for showmanship, a gorgeous voice, and a jazz artist's love of adventure." David Yonke

The Baltimore Sun
“She’s uprooted the instrument from its traditional place at the back of the orchestra and used it to play her own jazz-and-blues and Latin-influenced compositions and for her one-woman shows, which approach what is commonly thought of as performance art.” Stephen Wigler

Springfield Union-News
“Striking flamenco sparks from the strings … wrenching distorted bends worthy of Eddie Van Halen … belting gutbucket blues and crooning lullabies … It’s impossible not to be mesmerized. Henson-Conant brings utter sincerity, prodigious technique and courageous, elegant invention to the intense focus commanded by a master storyteller.” Unknown

The Scotsman
“...this sassy dame can make her harp howl like a tortured Stratocaster, or strum out Mexican cantina music, or swing like Brubeck…Henson-Conant has visited Edinburgh before, as a jazz harpist, but this, her first visit to the Fringe, is a one-woman extravaganza that combines review with cabaret with playing… actually, playing, slapping, pummeling and waltzing with the electronic Clarsach, which has enabled her to step out from behind the big unwieldy concert harp. [Note to Americans: “Clarsach” is the Scots word for the traditional Scottish harp on which Deborah’s “Body Harp” is based.] … And boy, does she step out, all breathy reminiscence one minute, gentle nocturnal murmurs from the harp, then a shake of those cascading rainbow hairbraids and that soaringly powerful voice lets rip… The audience laughed, got to their feet and cheered, or simply sat open-mouthed as she gave us the blues, on a blue harp – plucked, not blown, but fired up with soul nonetheless.” Jim Gilchrist

Boston Globe 
"... a night with Henson-Conant is some enchanted evening ... although the sound that comes out is still heavenly, it's a far more sensual notion of heaven than the ones we learned from Sunday school or Saturday morning cartoons ... with a presence that seems to combine Carly Simon and the comedian Catherine O'Hara, Henson-Conant commands the intimate setting ... from the outset ..." Ed Siegal

Webster Post
“… a voice that crisscrosses between the huskiness of Carly Simon and the refinement of Celine Dion.” Unknown

Grand Rapids Press
“Deborah Henson-Conant is why they call making music “playing.” She’s doing her job, but she’s having more fun than most people have on vacation.” Jeff Kaczmarczyk

Boston Herald
"Henson-Conant is a creature of fantasy in appearance: her long braids interwoven with colored ribbons hanging down her back, short black dress, one red shower of stars for an earring and silver-spangled cowboy boots. The lyrics are delivered in styles ranging from poetry to scat, as if there's nothing a harp and its mistress cannot accomplish together ... you must see the infinite possibilities Henson-conant brings to the instrument." Iris Fanger

SW - METRO - Edinburgh Festival Fringe
“Few have blown the cobwebs off harp music quite so comprehensively … Wielding a bright blue, custom-designed electric harp, fitted with a pick-up on every string and an array of digital effects, she wears it strapped on a la Stratocaster… thus replacing the sedentary stillness enforced on most harpists with plenty of dynamic movement. Her appearance, too, goes head-to-head with convention - miniskirt, cowboy boots, colourfully beribboned dreadlocks - but it’s her dazzling range and depth of technique, combined with a warmly energetic stage manner, that ultimately makes this such a memorable show … Effortlessly traversing genre boundaries from blues to folk, jazz to world music, she’s conjuring entire sound of a traditional Mexican street band one minute, laying into a ferocious Hendrix-inspired rock workout the next, all with equally unerring flair and finesse, while her bright-toned muscular singing proves equally adept at switching between styles. As she weaves one number into the next via whimsical takes of her childhood and snippets of ancient harp lore, you soon see why the Boston Globe couldn’t decide whether to send a drama or a music critic to review her show - they ended up sending both.”  Unknown

To the Top